And so it was, when they had crossed over, that Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask! What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you?” Elisha said, “Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.” (2 Kings 2:9)

At this point in 2 Kings, the time soon approached when the older prophet Elijah would be taken to heaven and leave the younger prophet Elisha behind. Before he left, Elijah tested Elisha in a few different ways and then asked this amazing question: Ask! What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you?

This was an open invitation for Elisha to ask for whatever he wanted. It was like the invitation that God gave to Solomon (1 Kings 3:5), and the invitation Jesus gave to all who seek Him (Matthew 7:7). This great invitation was given after Elisha had demonstrated his loyalty and commitment by refusing to leave his mentor. That dedicated, seeking-God’s-best attitude of Elisha was rewarded.

What did Elisha ask for? Elisha said, please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. Elisha asked for a big thing – a double portion of the mighty spirit of Elijah. Elisha saw how greatly the Spirit of God worked through Elijah, and he wanted the same for himself.

The idea of a double portion was not to ask for twice as much as Elijah had, but to ask for the portion that went to the firstborn son, as in Deuteronomy 21:17. Elisha asked for the right to be regarded as the successor of Elijah, as his firstborn son in regard to ministry. Yet Elisha had already been designated as Elijah’s successor (1 Kings 19:19). This was a request for the spiritual power to fulfill the calling he already received.

It is worthwhile to consider if this was generally a good or a bad thing. Normally we don’t think of one person inheriting the ministry of another. The relation between Elijah and Elisha – and God’s apparent blessing on their ministries – shows that at least sometimes God intends one person to inherit the ministry of another.

More than anything, consider this: Elisha could have asked for anything, but he asked for this. When offered everything, he didn’t seek wealth, worldly power, or status. He wanted all he might need to fulfill God’s purpose and call on his life.

What do you think is missing in your life? What would you ask God for if He offered you anything? Asking God for all you need to fulfill His highest purpose for your life is a great thing to ask for. Get a double portion of that.

Click here for David’s commentary on 2 Kings 2

And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt. (Leviticus 2:13)

Under the Old Covenant, not every sacrifice was of an animal and with blood. God also accepted the grain offering. Like every one of the offerings made by ancient Israel, the grain offering had to be made with salt. Why did God command this?

Salt Speaks of Purity
As a chemical compound, salt can’t change. It has an inherent purity. God wanted every sacrifice brought before Him to come from a pure heart. Some of what we do for God is from impure motives. We should ask God to give us the purest of motives: to show our gratitude and to honor His glory. I’ve also heard that salt itself cannot change, but it can be corrupted by what it added to it. When our motives are impure, it is often because we add concern about our own glory and prestige. Ask God to build in you the purity of salt.

Salt Speaks of Preservation
As a preservative, salt stops the normal operations of flesh. It is the nature of flesh to spoil, but salt-cured meat will stay good. Long before we used refrigeration and freezing to keep things, people preserved meats by salting them. When we come before God, we don’t come in our own “spoiled flesh.” We come in the name of Jesus, on the basis of His merits, not ours. We can only be “preserved” by the constant work of God in us.

Salt Speaks of Preciousness
Salt was an expensive, valued commodity in the ancient world. Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt. Adding salt to every sacrifice was a way to make each offering to God a little more costly, a little more precious. We need to put our best into everything, and give everything unto God.

If you go to the market you can see some foods that are “salt free” or “reduced salt.” That might be just what someone needs in their diet, but when we think of what salt symbolized for ancient Israel, we understand that we should never life a “salt free” or “reduced salt” life.

Every day is a gift we can and should give to God. It’s proper that we “season” or “sprinkle” our day with the understanding of:

– The purity God wants us to live out: Jesus is our purity
– The preserving work God wants to do in us: Jesus preserves us to the end
– The precious nature of each moment we give to God: Everything given to Jesus is precious

Even a small sacrifice can be precious before God if it is seasoned with salt!

Click here for David’s commentary on Leviticus 2

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:2-3)

The first Bible of my own was a paper-back version given to me when I came forward at an altar call to give my life to Jesus Christ. It was just a New Testament, The Living Bible version, and on the front, it had a picture of a child on his father’s shoulders and said, “The Greatest of these is Love.”

I have many more translations of the Bible now, and it seems like there is a never-ending stream of new Bible translations. No matter what Bible you like to read, the principle of 2 Corinthians 3 is still true: The Bible everybody reads is your life.

You yourselves are our letter, Paul wrote. Every letter has an author, and we are a letter from Christ. Every letter has readers, and we are known and read by everybody. Our life is like a letter, and we can’t hide it. People you meet every day read the letter of your life. We can’t blame them for doing this, because if the work of Jesus is real, it will be real in our lives.

Because every Christian is a bible, perhaps it’s time to recognize some new translations:

The “Ashamed to Follow Jesus” version (AFJ)
The “Sin Doesn’t Apply to Me” version (SDAM)
The “Other Christians are Terrible” version (OCT)
The “Christian Life is Miserable” version (CLM)
The “Holier than Thou” version (HTT)

How do we get the right kind of letter written? Again, look at 2 Corinthians 3:3. Every letter is written with a pen, and Paul says the letter of their Christian life is the result of our ministry. This means we should never neglect what other Christians can do in our life. Isolating ourselves as Christians is a bad thing to do.

Every letter is written with ink, and Paul says we are written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. Have you yielded your life to the Spirit of God? Are you walking in stress, or walking in the Spirit? If you are “translating” the Bible poorly, perhaps it’s because you are walking in stress, and not the Spirit.

Every letter is written on something, and our “bible” is written not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. This means we have to let God write His Word on our heart.

It’s sad to think that perhaps we haven’t translated the Bible very well into our lives. When we provide a poor translation, other people read it and get the wrong idea about Jesus. If you aren’t a follower of Jesus Christ, I’m sorry for the bad “letters” you’ve read. But I do ask you to remember that ultimately, it’s all about Jesus Christ. Instead of criticizing – sometimes with good reason – the “translations” around you, why not let Jesus write into your life?

Click here for David’s commentary on 2 Corinthians 3

For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell. (Colossians 1:19)

We like the Christmas season and we like to put our thoughts on the baby Jesus. So many aspects of the story appeal to us. We think of two relatively young people out among strangers and in great need. We think of the humble nature of their surroundings – no room in the inn – contrasted with the angelic glory of His birth announcement, even if it was heard only among a few shepherds. We think of the baby Jesus wrapped tight in fabric Mary probably brought with her all the way from Nazareth, knowing she would need it. We think of a little child on a starry night laid down to sleep in a feeding bin for animals.

All this is wonderful and true, yet it only scratches at the surface of the greatness of what God did on that night. The child sleeping in that manager was no mere man. God had humbled Himself to come not only in humanity, but in the full experience of humanity.

Theoretically, Jesus could have come to the earth as a 30-year-old man and began His public ministry immediately. After all, the first Adam came to the earth as an adult; perhaps the second Adam would also come that way. Yet it was good and right and important for the God to add humanity to His deity in a way that connected with the full experience of humanity, including the helplessness and dependence of a baby.

Yet make no mistake; Colossians 1:19 is just as true about the baby Jesus in the manger as it was true about the man Jesus on the cross: it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell.

It is a broad statement – combining the two mighty words all and fullness. Put those two words together and you mean everything. There is nothing left out from the all and from the fullness, and these two words tell us that in Him– that is, in Jesus Christ – there is all of what makes God really God.

There was a definite idea behind the ancient Greek word Paul selected, the one we translate fullness. The ancient Greek word was pleroma, and it was a recognized technical term in the theological vocabulary of the ancient world, describing the total package of Divine powers and attributes. Paul took all that was implied in that one word and said, “All of this fullness – all of this stuff that makes God who He is – all of it dwells in Jesus.”

Paul also carefully chose his words when it came to “should dwell.” The ancient Greek word for dwell is here used in the sense of a permanent dwelling. There is an entirely different word used for the sense of a temporary dwelling place. Paul wanted to emphasize the idea that Jesus was not temporarily God but He is permanently God.

Notice that the fullness is in Jesus Christ. Not in a church; not in a priesthood; not in a building; not in a sacrament; not in the saints; not in a method or a program, but in Jesus Christ Himself. It is in Him as a “distribution point” – so that those who wanted more of God and all that He is can find it in Jesus Christ.

So long ago, all of that slept in a humble manger on that Bethlehem night.

Click here for David’s commentary on Colossians 1

And [Elijah] said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” So he went up and looked, and said, “There is nothing.” And seven times he said, “Go again.” Then it came to pass the seventh time, that he said, “There is a cloud, as small as a man’s hand, rising out of the sea!” So he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot, and go down before the rain stops you.’” (1 Kings 18:43-44)

As Elijah prayed for rain, he expected an answer and he would not stop praying until he saw the answer come. So, he sent his servant out to look for the clouds of coming rain. The servant went out and saw nothing; Elijah kept praying. Five times more the prophet sent his servant to see the answer to prayer and the servant saw nothing.

Yet, “it came to pass the seventh time.” This was stubbornly persistentprayer. It was as if Elijah would not take “no” for an answer, because he was confident that it was God’s will to send rain. He stubbornly furthered the will of God by his persistent prayer. It is a good thing that Elijah didn’t quit praying after six previous disappointments.

Finally, the servant brought a report: “There is a cloud, as small as a man’s hand, rising out of the sea!” The evidence of coming rain came slowly and in a small way, but out of this small evidence God brought a mighty work.

Four Signs

Charles Spurgeon used these verses as an illustration of the small signs that come before a mighty work of God. He spoke of four “certain signs and tokens for good which prayerful faith clearly perceives when an awakening, a genuine revival is about to come.” Christians should regard such things as clouds, as small as a man’s hand, rising out of the sea. Spurgeon noted these four things which, in his opinion, were like a small cloud that signaled a great downpour of blessing to come:

– A growing dissatisfaction with the present state of things, and an increasing anxiety among the members of the church for the salvation of souls.
– When this anxiety leads believers to be exceedingly earnest and bold in prayer.
– When ministers begin pray together, and to say, “What must we do?”
– When we shall see the doctrine of the individual responsibility of each Christian fully felt and carried out into individual action.

Elijah knew that the small cloud meant a big work was on the way. He told King Ahab in faith, “Prepare your chariot, and go down before the rain stops you.” Based only on the sighting of a cloud that was as small as a man’s hand, he knew a torrent was on the way. When we see God moving in even small ways among us, we should have great faith for a greater work to come.

Click here for David’s commentary on 1 Kings 18