Day 8 - OUR ROCK-SOLID CONFIDENCE

Read: I Kings 17:1-17; 18
Focal passage:

At the customary time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself."

Immediately the fire of the Lord flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up the water in the ditch! And when the people saw it, they fell on their faces and cried out, "The Lord is God! The Lord is God!" I Kings 18:36-39

Do you ever read passages about great men or women in your Bible - like this one that we read about Elijah - and picture that person as "larger than life"? Do you sometimes see them as extraordinary - someone you could never measure up to? I'll confess that sometimes I do. Then, I have to stop and think.

Who was Elijah? He was just an ordinary man . . . a Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead (I Kings 17:1). Gilead was located east of the Jordan River. It was a wild and rugged country where the people lived in crude stone villages and subsisted by keeping flocks of sheep. Elijah's childhood was probably spent tending sheep on the rugged hills of his humble homeland. By adulthood the work of a shepherd had probably turned this wild, untutored child of the dessert into a muscular man of considerable strength and physical prowess. But little would have been different to distinguish him from his contemporaries if he had not become a man of intense religious earnestness and prayer (James 5:17). Elijah was an ordinary man of his day. But Elijah knew an extraordinary God (and knew Him WELL!).

Can you imagine the courage and boldness it must have taken for Elijah to present himself to King Ahab and make his prophetic pronouncement of a three year drought? Would he have been able to do that without an underlying fear for his very life? Where did Elijah find the strength? The name Elijah means "Jehovah is my God" but another possible translation of it words its meaning, "Jehovah is my strength." That gives us a pretty good clue, I think, of the source of Elijah's strength. In Bible times, names carried great significance in their meaning. They were often an indication of the essence of the person . . .a key to their life. So, "Jehovah is my strength" described the very nature or essence of Elijah. Oh, that the same could be said of us! Well, why can't it? If we are in Christ, Paul wrote that we "can do all things through Christ who strengthens" us (Phil. 4:13). Like Elijah, we too are just ordinary people. Like Elijah, we too have an extraordinary God. Like Elijah, we too can appropriate God's strength daily, hourly, moment by moment.

When Elijah confronted Ahab the first thing he said was, "As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives ..." (I Kings 17:1) To everyone else of Elijah's time God may have been dead and Baal may have been the god of choice; but to Elijah, God was very much alive. We have a risen Savior who is alive in us today. Elijah had intimate knowledge of God and knew Him to be alive and active. When our relationship with God is intimate and personal then we too know that God is alive and active in our lives.

The next thing Elijah said was "before whom I stand" ("whom I serve" NIV). Elijah may have been standing in the presence of King Ahab, but he was conscious of the presence before Whom he stood that was greater than any earthly ruler - the presence of Jehovah. I wonder if we too might find more boldness to confront the sin and rebellion in our world if, like Elijah, we had a greater consciousness of God's presence. If we are able to "practice the presence of God" (like Brother Lawrence words it) . . . if we are able to continually recognize His presence . . . if cultivating a consciousness of God's presence becomes the habit of our life - then, won't that lift us above all other fear?

Yes! We are ordinary women with an extraordinary God. Our God allows us, just like Elijah, to appropriate His strength, affirm His life and experience His presence. He is Our Rock-Solid Confidence. Because of what we know personally of Him, we, like Elijah, can have unshakable confidence in Him.

Elijah's confidence before Ahab was only surpassed by his confidence before the prophets of Baal. God responded to Elijah's request because of the motivation that prompted it. Elijah's mission was totally for God's glory. "Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God ..." I Kings 18:37

HOLDING HIS HAND:
(1) When I set out to do something in the Lord's name, do I have pure motives behind my mission? Is my goal always to glorify my God?

I want to answer that with a simple "Yes." But when I prayed through this devotional I had to confess to the Lord that sometimes I set out to do something in His name and I think my motives are pure but then I quickly find out my heart has deceived me.

In her book, Completely His, Shannon Ethridge wrote about her own motivations when she served as a youth minister. Here are some excerpts that spoke a lot of truth to me.

"Rather than seeking intimacy with Him, I was meeting with God only to get a handout of something I could use in my ministry. I was trying to impress other people and convince myself that I was really a good person. ... My goal wasn't a selfless one of serving my Lord, but a selfish one of serving my own self-esteem. ... As creative and inspiring as my youth-ministry efforts may have been, much of it was done out of selfish ambition, a desire to further my own kingdom. I liked that the kids thought I was cool. I enjoyed having the respect and appreciation of their parents. I relished being thought of by my pastor as an asset to our church. It seemed on the the surface to be all about God, but deep down, most days it was really all about me." (pgs. 72-73)

When I was journaling with God about the purity of my motivations Monday morning, I looked down at the mechanical pencil I was writing with and the Spirit quickly reminded me that it could not fulfill its purpose (I could not use it to write) if it were not filled with lead. Similarly, I cannot fulfill my purpose of bringing God glory if I am not filled with His Spirit.

I have an excerpt from a devotional by Sarah Hornsby in my prayer notebook - maybe it will be as meaningful to you as it is to me as we think of Elijah laying his sacrifice before the Lord on Mount Carmel.

The sacrifice God calls me to make

is my own body, mind and spirit

brought daily to the burning
altar of His presence.

Everything not OF or LIKE God
is to be burned away.

DAILY I yield

my will for God's will,

my love for His love,

my ambition for His mission.

(2) Can I have the same boldness and confidence that Elijah had whenever I'm doing that which God has asked me to do?

Yes, I can! Why? Because my God is the same totally dependable trustworthy God as Elijah's. He loves me with a steadfast love. The bigger question for me, however, is not "can I?" but "DO I"? And the answer is - sadly, though the same boldness and confidence is available to me, I don't always appropriate it.

(3) What does my response to the previous question say about God? What does it say about my personal belief in Him?

Perhaps it says that I don't know God as intimately as Elijah did. It says that God still has more to teach me about Himself. It says that God still has more to teach me about who I am in Him. I am ready to learn, Lord! Grant me a teachable spirit.