Crossing Your Jordan and Taking Up the Mantle

This is the season when the person who covered, protected, and mentored you is no longer present. The riverbank that recently parted, which you are now at again, is now in front of you. We have perfected the art of quitting. We have created a definition to make it palpable. We surrender and call it boundaries. The spirit of this generation has shown us how to quit. God is looking for individuals who will not just start but will fight until the end.

King Ahab's greatest issue was not that he was evil, but that he was weak. It does not like a man to be soft. God wants you to be in His own image. Jezebel does not have any power except that she is yoked to a permissive person. When a church will not discipline its own, it has an Ahab spirit.

For ten years, Elisha followed Elijah. Elisha was a diligent student. If you hang around people who are hungry for God, you will have a hunger for God. If you hang around people who study, you will study. If you are around complainers, you will become a complainer. The one who has been in training and is now going to be the leader. Some people only see people where they see them, where they are, and not where God is going to place them in the future. Do not feel threatened by people God has placed in your life.

God is looking for someone who knows how to pick up a mantle and what to do when they pick it up. When kings or leaders fall, God always has someone in place to take up the mantle.

Mantle: We act like mantles are freely distributed to everyone who wants one. We think it is a coat. But the Hebrew carries more of what a mantle means. Mantle is a weight of glory. It is the same family word for the glory of God, which is the economy of heaven in the hands of the profit.

Double portion: Elisha did not ask to be greater than Elijah. That would have been a display of arrogance. What Elisha was asking was to be treated as if he were Elijah's firstborn. Elijah said it was a hard thing to ask because sonship cannot be purchased.

Divided: It means to split or cut into. The one who obeyed the power was not in the person, but in the God of the mantle. 

Rent: Something has to be torn down to make way

Where: It points to the destination. When he asked a question of where is the God of Elijah, he asking God that he needs God to show up for him. There comes a time when you have to allow God to work for you.

 1. You may have to cross alone. When you want the mantle, you may have to be alone. Elish, when he was doing ministry, was found doing things alone. He confronted King Ahab, spoke to the widow, and watched the brook dry up alone. The real victory always happens in private time with God. That is why private prayer, fasting, and meditation are needed. The world never applauds what you do privately. You never have to wave a flag if you have the oil in your life. It will be evident the moment you open your life if you are anointed or not anointed.  

 2. The mantle will cost you. Some people are reaching for a title, while others are reaching for God. Most people are lying when they say Anyway you bless me, I will be satisfied. What happens in private translates into public. The anointing has a price. You have to learn about trade-offs. Elisha understood that when you are going into ministry, you have to cut off anything that would cause you to look back.  

 You have to be willing to hear the hard truth to be successful. As long as you have a plan B, you do not have a plan A. What is God asking you that you are unwilling to burn?

 3. You cannot give up, and you cannot burn out. The flesh will tempt you to give out, the world will tempt you to give up, and the devil will tempt you to give up.

 1. To give up- there will be days when your feelings tell you cannot take another step. Believers who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. Just wait on it.  

2. You cannot give- it is the body of the will. You cannot bend the knee to Jezebel. God told Elisha that He had a thousand who would not give in to the desire of the flesh. Sanctification is the daily vow that I will not bow down. Don’t bend the knee to Jezebel.

 3. Never give up. Rivers will still rise in front of you. Enemies will mock you, and your mood will try you. You're not quitting is not just about you. There are people assigned to you who are waiting for you to make the right choice.

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