BE LIKE ELIJAH

II Kings 1:10  But Elijah replied to the captain, “If I am a man of God, let a fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men!”  Then fire fell from heaven and killed them all.

      James tells us that Elijah was a man just like us (James 5:17).  Wait a minute!  A man just like us?!!  Elijah was a prophet of God who did some amazing things in his life.  He was used by God to perform many miracles.  He was a man of tremendous faith.  Read about his life and you are amazed by how God used him.  I am not like him!  I don’t go around doing the things he did.  I don’t have the faith to believe that God would use me like he did Elijah. 

    We don’t know anything about Elijah’s life prior to his showing up to visit with King Ahab and telling him there would be no rain in the land until further notice.  All we can do is speculate as to how he was raised and came to be the mighty man of God he was.  Whatever his background was, as an adult Elijah was a usual man of God used by God in unusual ways.

      The issue I want us to consider today is the status of our own hearts before God.  Before God can do anything through us, He has to do a work in us.  Faith exercised is faith developed.  We must take seriously the condition of our hearts before God.  This means taking care of our soul is our number one priority in life. 

      We need to deliberately and consistently feed our souls with God’s Word.  We listen to God speak to us through it.  We humbly accept and embrace it.  It takes time and effort to hear from God in His Word.  You will never have a proper understanding of faith until you do.  You need to have a reading plan and stick to it.  Quantity time is just as important as quality time when it comes to spending time in the Word.

      We need to deliberately spend time alone with God.  This means we set aside the time it takes to wait on God.  Prayer takes precedence over all other activities.  If we find ourselves too busy and something has to go, it must never be our prayer time.  We must develop an attitude of prayer that draws us to the Lord throughout our daily living.  The Lord should always be on our minds.

     We need to deliberately seek out fellowship with those who love the Lord and are striving to live for Him.  We need to be around and influenced by the people of God. 

     We may never be used by God in the way Elijah was, but we can have the faith of Elijah.  In fact, we must if we are going to be of any use at all in the work God is doing on earth. A living faith is a growing faith and a growing faith is a glowing faith.  You will be used by God in your own miraculous ways if you take care of your soul and let Jesus be Lord of your life.