We are looking at ways we can prepare our hearts for spiritual renewal and growth. Our studies have emphasized a commitment to God’s Word, to prayer, and to encouraging one another. Today we turn our attention to passing the mantle of faith.
Eli Stanley Jones is credited with saying, “God doesn’t have any grandchildren.” Each individual has the opportunity and responsibility to become a child of God.
The Scripture presents the truth of handing a godly legacy from this generation to the next generation. The story of Elijah passing the mantle of leadership to Elisha (1 Kings 19:19-21) provides a biblical example for passing on the faith. The lessons involve the cloak and the call.
First, the cloak makes the individual distinct. Elisha’s call presents the idiom “take up the mantle” which means to pass leadership from mentor to student. There was nothing magical about Elijah’s cloak but was powerful because of what and who it represented. The “hairy” robe was so distinctive that King Ahab recognized Elijah from the description alone (2 Kings 1:8). By the time of Zechariah, the cloak had become the signature of the prophet (Zech 11:3, 13:4). We are clothed with a relationship with Christ, distinct from the world.
Second, there is a call to leadership and a deeper commitment of faith. More than an invitation for salvation, the call may come from God but most often comes from someone willing to be a mentor to a student. Ultimately, the leadership of Elijah, who cast the mantle, is not passed along until Elisha picks it up from the ground.
Fifty men from the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan. 8 Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.
9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”
“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.
10 “You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”
11 As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. 12 Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two.
13 Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. 14 He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.
15 The company of the prophets from Jericho, who were watching, said, “The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.” And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.
2 Kings 2:7-15 NIV
Pray these twenty people will love God’s Word twice as much as you do.
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