The cost of a double portion...

Against the backdrop of a whole series of evil and idolatrous kings, two of the more godly characters in the books of Kings are the prophets Elijah and Elisha. I've been reflecting this week on 2 Kings chapter 2 and the way that these two men, from two different generations, partnered to see the word of the Lord spoken and demonstrated repeatedly to a people that was slipping further and further away from the God who should have been their true king.

I remember preaching on this passage twenty years ago. The missionary community that I was part of in Cape Town, South Africa, had asked me to speak at the worship gathering of around a hundred staff, and to bring a word for the new millennium. This was the Bible passage that I felt God gave me for that January morning in the year 2000. I spoke about the new millennium that lay ahead of us, and what it would take for the emerging generation of missionaries to enter into the double portion or double anointing of God's Spirit - which is what Elisha asks for as this story unfolds.

Lots of people desire spiritual anointing or ministry success, but sometimes they don't realise or remember that those things come at a price. When Elisha asked for a double portion of the older prophet's anointing, Elijah replied, vs 10, "You have asked a difficult thing." I wonder if he said this because he already knew from personal experience that God's supernatural anointing can rarely be separated from the challenging hardships, intense opposition and internal struggles that usually accompany it. Incredible endurance and perseverance are needed to follow God's call and enter into God's anointing. As Elijah responded to Elisha's request, perhaps he was sensing in his heart that having a double portion of the anointing might very possibly mean having a double portion of the hardships and opposition.

Elijah knew that if  Elisha was seeking this for the fame and success, if he was seeking the gift more than the Giver, he probably wouldn't have the endurance to last the course. But if he truly had a desire to bring joy to God's heart, if he had understood and begun to live out that ministry to the Lord is our first priority, and that it's not primarily about doing miracles or impressing people, then very possibly God would grant his request. And so Elijah replied with a simple condition: "If you see me being taken away (to heaven), then you will get your request. But if you don't, you won't."

In fact, Elisha had already gone a long way in meeting the requirements and demonstrating the character for his request to be granted. When the older prophet had first found him, working in the fields, and called him to follow God's prophetic calling (see 1 Kings 19: 19 - 21), Elisha said goodbye to family and prepared to leave everything behind. In fact, he didn't simply leave his plough and his oxen behind, he actually slaughtered his oxen and used the wooden plough to make a fire to cook the meat. Going back to farming wasn't going to be an option for him, as he had burned his bridges (literally, burned his plough) behind him. And it was a cause for celebration; he shared the barbecue with all his townspeople. This was no secret calling; it was a very public demonstration of commitment to the mission. Now everyone knew that Elisha had decided to follow God.

There's an old song that was often sung by previous generations: "I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back." Elisha radically demonstrated that attitude when he made his fire and roasted those oxen. And it's not that he didn't have plenty of opportunity to reconsider and turn back after all. Three times in this chapter - at Gilgal, Bethel and Jericho - Elisha had the opportunity to give up and turn back, but he chose not to. Each time, regardless of the cost, he said to Elijah, "I will never leave you." If he hadn't already persevered at each step of the journey, he wouldn't have been there by the Jordan river; he wouldn't have been around to see Elijah being taken away to heaven; he wouldn't have fulfilled the conditions for inheriting the double portion that he so longed for.

I remember standing in that church building during the worship gathering on that sunny morning in January 2000. I remember looking into the eyes of the many young people present, including a whole group that were working with us as KKI staff and interns, and I asked them, "Will you still be around when I'm gone? Will you still be loving and serving God, and walking in a double anointing?"

Twenty years later, most of those young people are now the age that I was then. I'm not in touch with all of them any more....  but I hope that more than a few of them have persevered and pushed through to inherit that double portion.

Read on in the post below to see the part that each generation needs to play if the double anointing is to become a reality.