To know
Christ in depth and to manifest Him in His fullness in our lives is the goal
for which we should aim. It is the high
price of the calling of God in Christ Jesus. It is not the ultimate of God, but
as we eat of His word, and digest the truth, then He will draw back the veil
and reveal more of the glory and beauty of the Christ. If you are of His fold,
you will hear and recognize His voice, and you will know that you are being
introduced to deeper truth.
Our
pursuit is after Christ, rather than knowledge just for the sake of knowledge. We
seek to know Him in His fullness, reaching for the life of God in His person. It is in Him that every limitation and
impossibility turns into possibility. There have always been men who walked in
a realm beyond the limitations of their time and generation. While most believers
feel that they have to settle for the status quo and even seem satisfied with
whatever is made available to their generation, there are some who are
spiritual pioneers, who reach beyond the general bench mark.
Enoch
was such as man for his generation. The
Bible says: “Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him.” (Genesis 5:24) It had been almost a thousand years since Adam
had walked with God in the garden. After the fall humankind had only promise of
death. The earth was filled with violence and the ungodliness of human kind was
a stench that reached to heaven. In the
midst of this, Enoch believed that he could reach beyond the limitations of his
generation and walk with God. Hebrews 11: 5 says that Enoch pleased God. It also
says that he was a man of faith, and by faith he was translated that he should
not see death. This was something unheard of in his generation and since then.
We
learn in Jude 14 that “Enoch prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord cometh with
ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all.” .“ Enoch was only
the seventh generation from Adam and he lived in a day when one can hardly find
half dozen saints, let alone ten thousand. Yet, he looks far beyond his own
day, and saw into the great day of the Lord when the saints of God would
execute a great victory over evil in the earth.
Today
our day is evil. A time of death, war,
famine, and pestilence will take the lives of millions. The outlook is very
dark. Even today those who know their God will do great things and break glass ceilings
sealed of our generation in spiritual exploit.
Noah had never heard Enoch’s prophesy. He had never heard Adam tell of
the wonders of the garden of Eden. He was born at a time when the wickedness of
humankind was so great it was causing God to repent that the He had ever made
them. There seemed no hope for humans. The word of the Lord had been spoken. “I
will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth.” Judgment seemed inevitable. Noah had no one
to encourage him in the way of righteousness, nor a five-fold ministry to help
perfect help.
Noah
would not settle for the lot of other humans. Genesis 6:8 says: “But Noah found grace in the
eyes of the Lord “. There have always
been those who stand out from of the world. This man was an outstanding
example. Ezekiel 14:14 lists him as one of the three who could deliver their souls
by their righteousness. Hebrew 11:7 says that Noah was a man of faith, and that
he believed the warning of God concerning things not seen as yet, and became an
heir of the righteousness which is by faith. And it was not only himself he was
interested is saving, but the Bible says that he prepared an ark, “to the
saving of his house” as well as the inhabitants of the beast realm.
Enoch
and Noah heard from God. They found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. They refused to
be held down to this realm of sin and judgment.
They pressed towards the work for the price of the high calling of God
in Christ Jesus. If you cannot receive
such a word, walk where you must, but let the pioneers of faith press on in
God. They cannot stop until, like Noah,
they step out into a new earth, full of the righteousness of God.
Elisha
was a young man, the son of a judge. He
was strong, husky and a hard worker. He
had a good future, and would have been able to have a nice farm and a nice
family. One day while he was plowing
with twelve yokes of oxen, and he with the twelfth, the prophet of God came by where
he was working and cast his mantle over the boy. His life was immediately changed. He had heard the call of God for a higher
calling. He left his oxen and began
reaching far beyond the limitation of humans.
Elijah
was the greatest prophet of that day, but he was very unpopular with the
government. In the natural wisdom it was
not an easy choice for Elisha to make.
But God had chosen wisely. He had
picked a man to succeed Elijah. This was
a large calling and required a man of daring faith. Elisha was that man. His ministry did not start in a blaze of
glory. He began by being a servant to
the man of God. He washed the dishes,
the clothes, and the prophet’s feet. He
carried the wood and built the fire and did all the other necessary, but menial
jobs while Elijah spent time seeking the face of God. This is where many men fail their
calling. When the ministry turns out to
be less than spectacular, they decide to go back together to something
else. But Elisha kept plugging ahead on
his way to the double portion God had for him.
If it took faithfulness, he would pay the price. Whatever it took, he had a spiritual stubbornness
that made him determined to go all the way.
He had heard from God. Nothing
else mattered.
Elisha
received no encouragement in following Elijah.
Everywhere he went the sons of the prophets tried to discourage
him. His answer was: “Hold your peace”. Even Elijah tested him, three times, but his
answer was always, “As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not
leave thee”. There was none to encourage
him. All he had was his determination to
see this thing through and receive that which he felt belonged to him by virtue
of his calling in God. Finally, they
crossed Jordan. He had just seen a
tremendous miracle by the hand of the prophet.
It was time to get his inheritance.
The question comes: “Ask what I shall do for thee”.
Here
is Elisa, a young man standing with Elijah who had stood before King Ahab and
judged the nation of Israel. He is the
one who had spoken the word that withheld the rain for three and a half years,
and then had stood alone against 400 prophets of Baal and defeated them with a
mighty demonstration of the power of God.
Ask, says the prophet, and in response Elisha cried out, “I want twice
what you have from God”. He received twice
and so much of the life of God that he caused iron to float, poison pots to be
nutritious, the dead to be raised to life again, and the ditches to be filled with
water. He healed the leper, fed a
multitude on a few loaves of bread, and a handful of corn, and caused the widow’s
pot of oil to flow until her debts were paid.
At his word barren women brought forth sons, and he captured an entire
army single handedly. And when he
finally goes to be with the Lord, his body still has so much of the life of God
in it that a dead corpse that is accidently thrown in the grave on top of him
comes to life and goes running off.
Do you
think you can bankrupt heaven? Well,
think again. Think with the mind of the
Spirit, and come up with a heart full of faith.
Rise above your circumstances. Don’t
be bound to the limitations of your generation.
You don’t have to stand and stagnate in the status quo. You can reach into that which God hath prepared
for them that love Him.
To do
so you must pursue after Christ, know Him in His fullness; and every human
limitations will be turned into limitless possibilities. Reach for the life of God in Christ. There lies the double portion Elisha asked
for, and it is all in Christ. Go get it,
the beloved of God.
T
Cyprian Kia
