Who do you know God as?

Friend? There with you no matter what?

Father? A friend who Loves you and ticks you off when you need it? Fathers give their children good advice and guidance and expect their children to follow it.

Lord ? Friend and father who you are totally sold out to who guides you and leads you and who is the only valid source and control you recognise in your life. You can see that your life is full of evidence of obeying Jesus commands and carried in His awesome peace. Isaiah 9:6

Some of us have become servants that have forgotten to be sons

Elijah’s shock realisation. 1 Kings19:2

Elijah the reviled and hunted solitary prophet has his time of vindication against all who hunted him. He slays the prophets of Baal. God has supported and vindicated him at last. Elijah knew he was right although that was tested and he persevered. Caught up in victory, he arrives at the palace and is greeted with words of condemnation and hate from Jezebel. It is no exaggeration to say that Elijah was bowled middle wicket. His actions show that he was not prepared for this. He probably thought like us at times, God has moved in revival, now everything will be fixed, even Jezebel. He was caught unprepared and carried away in the moment.

Satan attacked at his weak point. Elijah was no pushover, but there was something in the attack through Jezebel that terrified him and he started running. This attack had so caught him up in panic that he had stopped listening and just ran until he was exhausted. God’s kindness and friendship for Elijah comes in the form of an angel with a message and food. God saw that Elijah was going to keep running until he felt safe at mount Horeb and He provided for him. That provision alone should have caught Elijah’s attention, but just like you and me, he was so caught in his own inner turmoil that he cut himself off from the Father’s voice. What would catch you?

At the end of a day’s journey Elijah sits down to die in the desert saying “ I am no better than my fathers”. Somewhere in his perseverance for God, he had a little pride left. Elijah, the resolute persevering man of God who had hung on to and treasured the Father’s word to him and through him, suddenly sees clearly, maybe for the first time, that he is no better than his fathers. Instead of taking the path of humbling his heart in surrender before God, he is caught in a self pity attack. Right when he should have been on hand and ready to be God’s partner in revival and cleanup associated with revival, he rejects himself in discouragement.

Satan loves to put the boot in right when you are feeling on top of the world and when you have forgotten that you are human, to bring you low and see your own corruption. We must have no room for pride because discouragement is Satan’s favourite weapon and he’s very subtle about using it, so that you are convinced that those thoughts that are getting you down are your own.

1) plants a thought of how slack you are

2) amplifies it in your mind to flood point

3) you begin to speak it to yourself

4) you begin to accept it over you

5) he has succeeded in getting you to curse yourself

6) you are discouraged and you have closed your heart to the only voice that can help you

7) 2 ways from here: a) depression b) realise you are discouraged and open your heart to your Father for help. Repent, in other words and start speaking the truth over yourself. The attack will soon be gone.

Elijah had been through a lot and should have known this and repelled the attack, but the last bit of pride in him got in the way. Jesus, by comparison, never got too involved in his successful ministry, and in revival that was constantly breaking out around Him. He was always taking time to escape and keep His communication lines open, always keeping ready for the next step. Always communing with His father to be with Him most of all and to be ready for what was coming next.

With Elijah, however, the timing was important. Our Father saw on the mountain that the bitterness that has caught in Elijah’s soul will stay even though He had shown him that He is not in things or tempests or circumstances most powerful. That God is in Elijah in the still small voice that he had known throughout his walk and that our Father just wanted him to walk with Him, not get involved in the things, threats and furies of this world.

Jezebel’s threats are easy for God to deal with, but Elijah couldn’t regain the quietness of heart to see it and that ended his usefulness to God. Jesus commanded us to “let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be dismayed. You believe in Me, believe also in God”. It didn’t end Elijah’s walk with God, just his usefulness and God called Elisha to finish Elijah’s work.

Don’t let that happen to you, and don’t let this happen (to us) as a group of His Family. It is vitally important that we realise that when this move starts happening in an intense way, that we have not arrived, we are just beginning and to get on with the harvest, the teaching, the equipping, the healing.

Michael Arndt 28/02/1999