Two Shares of Your Spirit
We all need spiritual mentors. We see this truth all through the Bible. Moses led the people out of Egypt and at the same time he mentored Joshua. When Moses died, Joshua took over and led the people well, so that they took over the land of Canaan. In the New Testament Paul's mentee was Timothy, even though he had others who followed him. Timothy was his son in the ministry, and Paul told people that he knew Timothy would always do what Paul would have done. Yes, and even Jesus had His 12 disciples, and He was very close to John and Peter. They became very mighty in the ministry after the resurrection of Jesus. We see this with Elijah and Elisha, as well. Elijah was the greatest prophet up to his time and He worked many miracles, like calling down fire from heaven. Then, when he was taken up to heaven in the whirlwind, Elisha took over and did even more miracles than Elijah. (II Kings 2:9) One main reason we see this happen was that Elisha wanted to have two shares of Elijah's spirit. What does that mean? As believers, we need to understand this concept and practice it.
God's purpose for every believer is that we become like Jesus, our Lord. In order to see that happen, we read the Bible, and we see the character of Jesus. Then, we allow the Spirit to transform us into His image a little at a time, as we continue to read, pray, and grow by the grace of God. That is essential. However, another very important factor is having a spiritual mentor, a person who has grown to be a mature Christian and models Jesus for us. When we find that person, we watch them and desire to live like they live in the power of the Lord. In fact, we should not just want to be like them, we should desire to be used by God even more than they were. We should aspire to have two shares of their spirit, or to be twice as much a follower of Jesus as they were. Then, when we have that godly aspiration, we do not settle for second best in our life. We want to excel for the glory of the Lord. We give the credit to the power of the Spirit to transform us, but we also share our thankfulness for the one God gave us to be our mentor. Then, we should aspire to be a mentor of others, and lead them to have the same godly ambition. This is how God's kingdom is supposed to get greater and greater in this world.
#NHBaptistdotorg
Tomorrow, I intend to read II Kings 3-5.