All in Wk. 2

INTRO- ME/WE: Resorting to plan B. Always having a back pocket option JUST IN CASE the way we are seeking/pursuing doesn’t pan out.

Getting up to speed on 1 Kings 19 -

Major movement in the Spiritual world. God doing some ground shaking work to solidify to the world around that he was God and there was no other.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED! - Since the beginning of time there has always been a fight for the most powerful. Ahab/Jezebel were the ones during that time frame and God would use it as a period to a world audience that he alone was God. This could be the single greatest visible God event to date. After that day, there would be no doubt in mind who was in charge.

Following that event, Elijah goes into something of an identity crisis and needs to hear directly from the Lord about who he was, who God was to him and what he needed to do next.

I’ve read, preached, studied 1 Kings 19 multiple times and I can’t even begin to tell in detail just how developing that passage is to people. It confronts depression, anxiety, identity and our specific relationship with God and his work/plan for us as his people. Take some time and study/process through this passage.

At the end of this, God decides it’s time to change things up and he’s about to bring Elijah’s life and ministry to an end and declares that a major change needs to take place.

This is one of the most profound places in Scripture where we see the importance of major change in a persons life.

It’s not always good to buckle down into a single position/situation for your entire life.

Change is inevitable and most often, change brings new life and vibrancy to almost any situation.

Honestly, that’s what a new year brings us. It’s avails new and fresh hope to an otherwise dead or dormant season.

Every year, during the first days of January, I am infiltrated with fresh determination to accomplish just about anything that comes my way! Why!? Because of fresh hope and a new season.

It’s not always true that everything needs to change for fresh life to comes, sometimes the only thing that needs to change is the way you see it.

Look at this: 1 Kings 19:4-6, But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” 5 And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” 6 And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again.

Further - 9-10, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

18- I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

When we presume that we are alone in whatever we face, everything looks worse than it actually is.

You’ve got to get yourself to a new perspective. A new alignment of recognition. Maybe God has something that he hasn’t disclosed to you. Maybe there is something at work here that you didn’t know about. And maybe there is a greater story narrative that is happening and you're only a very small part of it than it being all about you.

God help me to see it the way you see it. Help me look at it from your perspective. Just give me one simple glimpse from your angle so I don’t mess up with the way I want to approach it.

1 Kings 19:19-21 ESV- So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen! in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. He’s from a very wealthy family. For him to leave this behind was a statement of trust and belief that what he was moving toward was significantly better than what he was leaving behind. What you say yes to may not be physically better, but it’s better to be a part of God’s plan and movement for your life than to run from him.

Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him. 20 And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” And he said to him, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?”

There’s still one thing I have yet to do. Elisha knew well what God was speaking.Grand Point Church

God told me to do this… // Well God didn’t clue me into that thing, so i’ll wait till I hear from him first.

What God is going to command he’s going to make clear and certain. When the Lord speaks to you about what he wants to do next, he’s giving you a blinker about what’s coming and then you need to just wait till the time when he enacts it.

Moses - Pharaoh

Jonah -

Deborah - Barak (Judges 4)

The choice of trust. We can choose to trust the Lord or we can choose to trust ourselves. When we choose to trust ourselves, there is always something missing from the end. It is much better to choose to trust the Lord and advance in uncertainty then to figure it all out only to realize you also missed out on what he was calling you to.

21 And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him.

For Elisha, this was the moment he was waiting for, preparing for and just doing his minimal until it became time for him to maximize his output on what God was calling him to do.

Honestly, I believe there comes a God calling in the life every literally every person to join the Father in his work and we will either have prepared and are ready to follow or we will not even recognize the calling when it comes. It will look like too much. It will appear too sacrificial.

Just know, when God calls, the life that follows is filled with the adventure of experiencing the Lord frist hand. But before you get there, you’ve got to put to death PLAN B.

We are all into God and are ready for what he’s going to do next.

He’s going to be faithful. But are you?

Elisha, takes the tool that has been providing his welfare and decides that he’s going all in on God’s plan. After this, there will be no turning back. There will be nothing to resort to.

I’m not quite sure that he was concerned that he might come back to the menial moment in time, but that he wanted to symbolize his trust and determination together with God.

So he lights a fire with the wood from the plow, gets some good BBQ sauce and hosts a party to celebrate that God had considered him worthy of something greater.

He was transitioning from this to that.

I wish I knew how old Elisha was. We really know nothing of his life previous to this but we know what follows is majestic. What God was going to do with him would be nothing short of miraculous and it was simply because he would be willing to do so.

YOU - What does this do to you?

So much of our lives we live in restraint of what we might lose. We have a vision in mind of what we want and the outcome we desire. It seems too tough for us to trust God with what we have in mind not realize that what he has might be better.

I told you last week that you should say yes to God and then ask questions later.

I challenged you with the idea that you should be determined to take every challenge through this month and try them out, see what God might have in store for you. Nothing more than that. Just live each day of the month in anticipation of what God might have.

Here’s my challenge for you today. It’s time to sacrifice Plan B.

To go all in with the Lord, means that I need to fully trust. I need to trust his plan, I need to trust his purpose.