God Is A Moving Source

And Elijah said unto him, tarry, I pray thee, here; for the LORD hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on.

II Kings 2:6

Today, all across the Body of Christ, many are shouting the same question, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Where is the Lord God of Paul, Peter, John G. Lake, D. L. Moody, Smith Wigglesworth, Evan Roberts, and Billy Sunday?" I'll tell you this for certain: He's not where He was. If you look for Him in the past, you won't find Him there; God is on the move. He refuses to be restricted to your denomination, your theology, or your formula. You can't pin Him down to one solitary place. The instant He gets there, He pulls up stakes and travels onward.

The moment you try to put Him in a box and say, "God is here," He jumps out of the box of your conceptual limitation and goes on. The moment you think He's in the due order, He moves into the chaos. When you think He's in the laughter, He moves to the tears. It's frustrating, but welcome to the journey!

Welcome to life with Jesus. Just when we think we've arrived, He has already moved on to somewhere else. We arrive at Bethlehem and He's moved on to Jordan. We arrive at Jordan and He's moved on to the Garden. We arrive at the Garden and He's moved on to the Cross. We thought that the Cross was the end of the story, that death had had the final word. But no, we go out to the tomb site and discover that Jesus has risen and is no longer there. We finally arrive at the Ascension, only to find Him at the Upper Room descending as tongues of fire upon the heads of the apostles, the demonstration of signs and wonders following.

God is a moving source! He is on the move; He is never stationary. There is always a going on in God. If you don't move with Him, you'll miss Him. This is why Paul gave us the vital admonition written in the book of Hebrews, "…let us go on…" (Heb 6:1).

If we are to experience all that God has for us, we must preserve a pioneering spirit. As messengers from another Kingdom, we can't afford to take on the spirit of a settler or camper. It is our supernatural nature to explore the unexplored realms of the Spirit and the Word. Therefore, we must fight off the natural tendency to camp around a certain truth or spiritual experience. I can't emphasis this enough: We are sojourners and not city builders.

The Israelites knew this truth well. God had miraculously delivered them from their bondage in Egypt, and then led them on a journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land. With them went the Ark of the Covenant. They knew the Ark represented the very presence of God in the midst of the people (Num 10:35-6). During their journey in the wilderness, a pillar of cloud covered the Ark by day, and a pillar of fire by night. It was not simply a cloud, but rather it was the Lord going ahead of them. The appropriate place for the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire was in front of the people (Ex 13:21-2). That's where the Lord should always be—in front! Jesus told His disciples to follow Him, not run off willy-nilly following their human-inspired promptings and whims of emotional impulse.

When the cloud moved, Israel moved. When the cloud stopped, Israel stopped (Num 9:18-23). They followed a moving God who is never stagnant. If the children of Israel didn't keep pace with the moving of the presence of the Lord, they would find themselves out in a blistering desert without a covering.

We, too, must be ready to move at the slightest prompting of the Spirit of God. We, too, must keep pace with the glory cloud of His presence. For the children of Israel, it wasn't only their mandate from Moses---it was their survival in a howling wilderness filled with predators waiting to leap on stragglers. In any dispensation, at any time, the safest place in all the Earth for any child of God is under the glory cloud of His presence. As the old Pentecostal hymn says, "When the Lord gets ready, we've got to move." We've got to follow this moving cloud in order to remain under His glorious favor, provision, and blessing. This divine cloud will eventually take us where mantles fall for the receiving of the double portion anointing in our lives.

The Lord's complaint against the religious leaders of His day was that they were blinded by their tradition and were unable to discern the season of their visitation (Matt 16:2-3, Luke 12:54-6). They had no sense of the spiritual climate or the approaching kairos moment. Something was right under their noses, but they couldn't smell it. They didn't have a clue. God was on the move in their day and they were unwilling to make the shift. They held on to their tradition and despised the transition only to disqualify themselves from the next move.

Likewise, there are transitional points in our relationship with the Lord today. Whenever God begins to move in our midst, we reach a transitional point where we're required to make a shift. Consequently, we have a window of opportunity to initiate a beginning of the new, and an end of the old. The ability to change gears and make the necessary transitions with God is vital to the fulfillment of our God-ordained destinies.

A transition is a process in which something undergoes a change and passes from one state, stage, form, or activity to another. It is the change of status or condition we must all pass through if we expect to rise to the next level of His purpose. We cannot be dormant in our walk with God. When God gets ready to move, we must refuse to be traditional and always be transitional. Some of you are feeling the birth pangs of another move of God. He is waiting for a people prepared to move with Him. Remember, religious tradition is always the enemy of our ability to transition into the next move of His Spirit.

For Israel, the transitional point was the Jordan River. Some of you are at your transitional point right now. God wants to know if you will be content to sit down and camp around a past experience, or go on to the fullness of your birthright. Elisha had four transitional points in his life and ministry: Gilgal, Bethel, Jericho, and Jordan. If he had encamped around any of these realms, he would have disqualified himself from the double portion. Today, we, the Elisha Company, will be required to pass through these four transitional points on our pathway to the double portion. It is vital that we be established at each of them and then move on.

Gilgal, where the reproach of Egypt is rolled away, typifies our new birth experience (Josh 5:9, II Cor 6:17). Bethel, where the house of God is anointed, typifies our baptism in the Holy Ghost and our commitment to the local church (Gen 35:14-5, Acts 2). At Jericho, the place of warfare, we step on the necks of our enemies and tear down the walls that oppose us (Josh 10:24, II Cor 10:4). And at the Jordan, we cross the river of death to self, and receive the double portion anointing (Josh 3, 4; II Kings 2:12; Luke 4:1-14).

Each transition point transforms us---but we cannot camp at any one of them! If we camp around one truth, we limit our transformation from glory to glory. If we camp and settle, then we will sit and sour. In fact, God is calling His people from their camping mentality into an aggressive pursuit of the Promised Land. As did Elisha, we must follow Elijah to the end of the journey. He that endures to the end inherits the promise (Heb 6:15).

In conclusion, I'm glad for His footprints on the sands of revival history, but I want more than that. I want Him! I want to warm up to the fire He's warming up to---not just to camp around the smoke and ashes of past revivals, hoping to get the chill out of my bones! I will never be satisfied to live where He has been, when it is my blood-bought privilege to live where He is. I invite you to make a commitment with me to a transitional lifestyle in perpetual pursuit of God, our moving source.

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Sincerely,
Representative
UPPER ROOM CHRISTIAN WORLD CENTER

From Affirmation to Anointing

The famous American author Mark Twain once said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Though history leaves us uncertain of his religious beliefs, at least we find him in agreement with Scripture on this occasion. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Twain’s words lead us to an important observation: the contemporary soul of this generation is starving for affirmation.

In and of itself, that isn’t wrong. The problem is, people will receive it wherever and from whomever they can get it. I’m convinced they’ll even accept a dog’s wagging tail at the door as conclusive evidence that they’ve been wonderfully affirmed. Their souls are so starved for affirmation that they fail to discriminate the source.

A businessman finds his affirmation in the latest deal he’s made. An actor finds his affirmation in the accolades showered upon him after his latest performance. A misguided young girl gets her affirmation in the backseat of a Chevy. Or a mother’s rebellious son finds it belonging to a local gang in the inner cities of our nation.

I, too, as a Christian, am as vulnerable to a sincere compliment as the next man. I personally love words and acts of affirmation. They can serve as oxygen to our souls and lift our spirits. However, I’ve come to believe that it is only the Father’s affirmation that will carry the Church through the hard and difficult times on the journey to the fulfillment of her destiny. It is the Father’s affirmation that under-girds us during Satan’s assaults upon our self-image and true identity. Human affirmation falls short in the warfare we wage against our enemy. Paul clearly informs the Church of this divine source of affirmation when he writes in the book of Romans, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:…” (Rom. 8:16)

As is secular society, the Church in our day is engaged in a desperate search for affirmation wherever and from whomever she can get it. She, too, doesn’t always discriminate its source. If she’s not seeking for human acceptance, she requires her preachers to pump it out every Sunday morning. If they fail to affirm her, she becomes offended and frustrated. Soon she finds another pabulum-pumping preacher down the road who will spoon-feed her from the pulpit and tell her how wonderful she is. There was a better time when the Father’s affirmation, through the witness of the Spirit, was all she required.

The affirmation of God is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. When God affirms you (firms up your mushy self-image), it is a call to begin a journey to a place in God you have never been before. It is the inauguration of an intimate journey with the Lord which culminates in the double portion anointing! Whether it is through answered prayer, a prophetic word, a miracle, an outbreak of revival, or an unexpected blessing, simply stated, the Father’s affirmation is a call to pursue! And who pursue? The hungry. They follow after with a heart that beats for Him with a passionate quest of His grandeur. Combining David’s desire and Moses’ fervent desperation, they cry, “Show me Your glory!”

We often miss the true implications of our visitations, encounters, and touches from God. We want a touch, but God doesn’t want to give us just a touch. He wants to give us a destiny. We’ve allowed those affirmations to become nothing more than a fading memory-an ancient testimony-instead of what they were designed to be: a hot pursuit into all that God has for us and a pilgrimage to attain the double portion anointing.

The sad commentary is that all too many times, we’ve wasted our supernatural visitations, divine encounters, and glimpses of God and reduced them to a feel-good affirmation. We run to conferences and revival meetings to experience a ‘touch’ only to return home to business as usual. We stop at ‘goose bumps’ and ‘doodads’ that tickle our skin and run up and down our spine. Though these emotional encounters are part of the way the Lord designed us to experience the spillover of the heavenly into the natural, we cannot let it end there!

Our response has to extend beyond, “Wow, what a service! Wow, the whole church was reduced to tears and brokenness at the altar! Wow, didn’t that message wreck the house!” Yes, God affirmed us-and that’s the very reason why our walk has to go beyond weeping and shouting at an altar, only to return to church next Sunday for a repeat performance of the same. We’re looking for another Holy Ghost experience, but God is looking for us to begin a passionate, engaging encounter with Him until the transformation of nations becomes a common occurrence.

It is time for the Church of the new millennium to move from the place of affirmation to the place of anointing. We can no longer be gluttons for approval. We have to change our posture from that of Pentecostal thrill seekers to those engaged in vigorous pursuits as God seekers. We need to graduate from the thrill of an encounter to a pursuit of God that ends in an anointing that can change our world!

It bears repeating: We often miss the true implication of our visitations and touches. Every healing, every deliverance, every answered prayer, and every prophetic word you receive is not an end in itself. It is really a call to pursue. It is God summoning you to embark upon a journey into new spiritual territory. Every God encounter, however meager or magnificent, prods us to continue deeper into Holy Spirit reality. Every blessing is a new grace to press on. Don’t waste the Father’s embrace. Don’t cheapen divine approbation. Don’t squander a heavenly call.

Perhaps the most powerful example is that of Elisha, found in the book of I Kings. When we first see Elisha, he is “driving the twelfth” of twelve pairs of oxen and eating the dust of eleven plows turning the soil in front of him. Suddenly and unannounced, the old prophet Elijah, on assignment from God, slips up behind Elisha while he is plowing, casts his rough, camel-hair mantle over the young farmer's shoulders, and then moves on (I Kings 19:19-21).

I admire Elisha’s response to the touch of Elijah’s mantle upon his shoulders. It serves as a model for the believer today. Elisha understood that the encounter with the mantle wasn’t an end in itself, but rather a prodding to go on, to press through and advance toward his destiny. It was designed to whet his appetite and create a hunger that demanded satisfaction.

It was more than a feel-good experience that affirmed him in the eyes of the other farmers in the field. It was a foretaste and announcement of something far greater. It was this experience with the mantle in the field that goaded Elisha in his pursuit of Elijah’s double portion anointing. He burned all his bridges behind him and started on a journey that would take him to the fullness of what he had only merely sampled: the transference of the mantle that empowered His master.

You may be brushed with a mantle as you read these words. If that happens, what will you do? What will you make out of it? God may take the initiative and you may be kissed with destiny. How will you respond? Will you store it in your memory bank, and let it end there? Or will you transform it into a pursuit that will forever change the landscape of your life and catapult you into an anointing that destroys the works of the devil on every front of your life?

Coming into contact with the mantle of affirmation is the grace incentive to endure the journey to the double portion. Those that are determined to receive this incredible measure, be it known to you that you will have to withstand the hardship of the wilderness! It is unavoidable and inevitable. There is no way to bypass it. When you encounter this dry and desolate place, your response is key. For, if the truth be told, your response to your wilderness determines the level of your anointing!

(From "The Double Portion Anointing")

Twice As Much Unction

Scripture reference: I Kings 19:19-21

As a Pastor for over 30 years, I have grappled with criticism, slander, financial problems, disgruntled sheep⎯the list is endless. It seemed like I would solve one problem, and another would crop up. I’m sure that many of you, though not in ministry, have contended with similar difficulties. In the hopelessness of those situations, I sought the Lord and He said to me, “Detach from the problems and elevate your anointing.” He instructed me that every problem I faced could be solved with an elevated anointing. So now, when I’m bombarded with problems, I don’t lose my peace; I simply pursue God for a greater manifestation of the anointing in my life (Isaiah 10:27).

Even a casual glimpse at life in contemporary society reveals similar problems and challenges which can seem to be insurmountable for the believer⎯the scourge of abortion, the ever-present threat of terrorist attacks, the recent financial chaos the world has been plunged into⎯how are we to cope with such turmoil?

I believe the same principle applies: The one and only effective answer to the vicious assault of the enemy you have faced in the past is an elevated anointing. Likewise, the only defense to betrayal, heartache, disappointment, financial pressure, and domestic crisis is an elevated anointing. I am profoundly convinced that this is the time when God will elevate the anointing of every believer seeking overcoming victory in his or her life. What you have experienced and received in the past is only a foretaste of what is to come shortly.

As much as I deeply appreciate the anointing demonstrated in the life of AA Allen, Jack Coe, Aimee Semple McPherson and the like, I don’t wish to return back to their mantles of anointing. I don’t believe they would be as effective in today’s society as you might think. The anointing upon David to slay Goliath or upon Samson to slay one thousand Philistines or even upon the great prophet Elijah to call down fire from Heaven would not get the job done today.

Yesterday’s anointing was good for yesterday, but we need an anointing that will override the concentrated evil and demonic strongholds unique to this present darkness. The old anointing won’t do. The old level won’t do. The strongholds of contemporary America require a greater anointing from the Church than we have ever witnessed before in history. As evil escalates, our anointing level rises. This divine proportion is a promise God gave us in the epistle to the Romans, “…where sin abounded grace did much more abound.” (Rom 5:20)

Every past outpouring imparted to the Church was only a dress rehearsal or a foretaste of what is about to come to our generation (1Pet 1:4). I know this realization is a radical statement, but I firmly believe God has a mantle reserved for this generation that will surpass and exceed anything demonstrated in our past. God never repeats Himself; He always exceeds Himself. God is about to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think (Eph 3:20).

It is as if God is using His ATM Card to make an unprecedented transfer from the savings account of Heaven to the checking account of the Church. God is about to make the largest investment of spiritual resources He has ever made into the life of the Body of Christ in this end-time. All past anointings are about to converge within us in this one moment and be multiplied. The remnant church will be busy unleashing the supernatural into the natural realm until “…the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ…” (Rev 11:15)

In light of these truths, it is vital that we reposition ourselves with a journey into the place where mantles fall. In order to make this journey, we will be required to complete unfinished business and throw off excess baggage.

Elisha was the Old Testament prophet who inherited the double portion anointing and whose life forged a powerful testimony to a miracle-working God. He, too, was called upon to make such a journey. He, too, was required to shed excess baggage. We read in the book of I Kings,

“So he [Elijah] departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him. And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again: for what have I done to thee? And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him.” (I Kings 19:19-21)

Before Elisha arose to follow after the veteran prophet, we need to track his steps and see what he did was more than a ritual. He didn’t know where he was going or by what route he would get there. He only knew there was an appointed place and an appointed time he would arrive at when he would receive what would fuel and catapult him into his divine destiny.

He took care of all unfinished business before he started on his journey. He refused to take excess baggage on this trip. He had to travel light. You will never reach the place of the double portion unless you’re prepared to burn all your bridges behind you. As we read in Philippians, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” (Phil 3:8)

Elisha burned the bridges of his past life. He made a radical decision to leave the comfort and security of the old and reach for the uncertainty of the new. The peril of losing what he had meant much less to him than the glorious possibility of gaining what he yearned to possess.

One brush with destiny, and the course of his life would change forever. The mantle simply brushed up against his shoulders and he was instantly addicted to the anointing from that moment on. No longer could he settle for the mundane normalcy of his life. The ox, the plow, and yoke were now unacceptable to him. He could no longer tolerate the religious rut which they represented. They had their purpose, but now their purpose was over. He must exchange yokes. From this point, he would harness himself to Elijah. He would never again be yoked to a lesser purpose.

In a very real sense, you are called to do the same. You’ve got to kill the ox, burn the plow, and cast off the yoke of your old carnal life if you want to reach the place of double portion⎯the place of transference and impartation. If you want to wear the mantle that parts rivers and raises the dead to life again, you must be willing to let loose of anything that hinders your progress and stifles your journey.

In this New Year of 2009, let’s get back to the passionate heart of Paul who said, “…this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3:13-4)

(From "The Double Portion Anointing")