Hello readers,

… and we’re here! 2024.

How are you shaping up for the new year? Not ready for it? Maybe you haven’t even finished with the last and now it’s already gone and with the new one already on top of you with even more challenges, decisions and uncertainties ahead! … Life barrels on ahead!

… Below are some of my favourite verses in the Bible, maybe a small detail in the Bible in the grand scheme of things, but detail matters!

1 Kings 19:5 “And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.”

1 Kings 19:6 “And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.”

1 Kings 19:7“And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.”

These verses are dealing with the life of Elijah. And these verses are touching to me every time I read them or when they are brought to my remembrance. If you know the context to the story, Elijah has been in the battle… faith is a fight! And he’s warred a pretty good warfare. And he’s had quite a time contesting the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel and then earnestly praying for rain.

He’s seen the fire and the rain… but in the meantime it has all stretched him to his limit… and he seems to have gone over the edge. When Jezebel sends him a message saying she’s gonna kill him, he takes flight! That letter was Elijah’s tipping point. Has your tipping point ever been found before? Mine has! Maybe you’ve been teetering on your personal edge for a while… and it’s not going to take much to tip you over.

Honestly, we are all only one bad bit of news from going over the edge. We are one visit to the doctor telling us we’ve got cancer away. We are one phone call telling us a child has died in a car accident away. We are one notice of termination of our job away. This independent spirit, this self made delusion, this career mentality, this bulletproof energy… it’s all an illusion. You and I are a few words away from complete disintegration.

There’s a good reason Jesus said to his disciples “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while”… sometimes we just need space and time… and here, Elijah needs a timeout and he’s called for it.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. Because he’s hitting a massive flat spot in his walk with God as we all can do. Have you ever hit by a tidal wave of discouragement and disappointment and despair in your life? And it’s amazing how we can be on the mountain one moment, and in the deepest valley the next! I flatlined at times last year, and I know how easily it is to flatline, and can’t imagine how some other Christians handle harder lots than me. How are you going with your “lot”? We don’t get a whole lot of choice sometimes in what is cast into our lap… but “the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.”

So what Elijah has done is that he has isolated himself from everyone else. Nobody wants others to see us flatlining. So we all can tend to withdraw from everyone else, even those closest to us when we are. And Elijah has asked God to end it all. And not only has he arrived at wit’s end, but he’s seen his own failure and wretchedness, and he feels all alone. Isn’t it amazing also how he could win such big battles and have such great victories in Christ… and yet one little letter could leave him requesting death in the desert? It’s amazing what can actually get to us isn’t but.

Elijah is facing his insufficiency for what he’s facing! And he’s not alone there. Because when if I look at my road ahead, and the challenges and impossibilities of the upcoming year… I think to myself… I can’t do it. I am not sufficient for that. Are any of us really sufficient for the Christian life? The reality is, and some may feel like they are because they have more capacity and ability… but I have realized abundantly that I am not sufficient for the next day, week, month, year… life.

Paul said in  2 Corinthians 2:16 “And who is sufficient for these things?” You’d have to read for yourself to find what “things” he’s talking about. He had his things, and as Christians we share some of the same things… but there are also things unique to each one of us. Who is sufficient for your things? Is it you? Do you still reckon you can take em all yourself?

Paul answers this question that he has almost rhetorically asked very soon after in the next chapter “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;”

We all inevitably come to the point where we realize our own nothingness. My sufficiency for my Christian walk, for finding a spouse, for being used by God, for really just “doing life”… it’s non existent. I need God’s grace… I need him enabling me “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me”. In the meantime, maybe like Elijah, I’ve just needed a bit of a time out. And maybe you need a timeout too.

And that’s the picture here in 1 Kings 19 and Elijah just needs some rest… and a touch from God in your life! Which he gets. And Elijah wakes up to that touch and finds that the angel of the Lord has provided food and water for him. God has laid it on for Elijah! And it’s such a gentle touch in the word of God.

God has a soft touch. This world relentlessly drives people, Christians can even drive people… everyone’s trying to build something… but God tenderly leads on. Sometimes in Christianity you see so much going on, and there’s no space and time in it for anyone, maybe not even a personal walk with God. And they burn out inevitably because they’re being driven, and it’s not God doing it. Remember how Jacob was leading his family to Canaan, and when he met Esau, Esau was wanting to take over and drive them toward his vision for where they needed to be… well Jacob had other ideas!

Genesis 33:13 “And he said unto him, My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young are with me: and if men should overdrive them one day, all the flock will die.”

Genesis 33:14 “Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on softly, according as the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure, until I come unto my lord unto Seir.”

Jacob was very wise here. He never went to Seir, he was never going to Seir. Watch out for people who are taking you and insisting upon taking you in a direction and to a place you have no place being. We’ve got to really look at who is leading our lives? We can tell ourselves it’s God… but is it really? God’s leadership is what we should desire in our lives. And how does he lead? Well not through force. And how does he treat us? Better than we deserve. And he doesn’t raise his voice with us does he, it’s still the still small voice.

So Elijah goes back to sleep, he rests up. And then the angel of the Lord touches him again. And in prospect of your new journey this year, consider this phrase, what the angel of the Lord tells him “Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.”

The journey is too great for me. Is it for you too? I can’t take it on. I’m not sufficient for it. I’ll need to break it down to day by day. I’ll need God’s grace every day for the journey. I’m not going to make it all at once, but by one step in front of the other. The journey is too great for me.

Thank God that he has made provision for the miracle journey of his children. No pilgrim traveling through this world has not been provided for by God. God provided for Elijah, he fed him with food that lasted forty days and forty nights until his next stop… and he’ll do it for you too.

By the way, we kinda think we need all his grace all at once. But God gives grace for the time and place. You don’t just “store it up”. Because then you wouldn’t require faith. It’s a journey of trusting his sufficiency again and again. Just like when Israel were entering the promised land… remember, God said he wasn’t going to drive all the nations out all at once but “little and little”… “By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.” Maybe by the end of this year, after a whole lot of little and little, you’ll see the increase and the inheritance at the end.

… In this blog, I also want to touch on something God has shown me recently for the year ahead. I believe it is for me, but it could very well be for you also. Here are the verses…

2 Timothy 2:20 “But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour.”

2 Timothy 2:21 “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.”

I’ve always been aware of these verses, but they haven’t spoken to me before just as much as they have just very recently. It is still an area of thought for me, but here’s what I’ve gotten out of it.

I wouldn’t put water in every vessel in my house to drink. We have very specific vessels that we use for specific uses. We have vessels to drink out of, eat out of, that we use to prepare meals with. And then we have vessels only suitable for less honourable uses, I’m sure you could probably think of some.

In every house, some vessels are clean and some are unclean. Some vessels are “sanctified” for a certain use. Some vessels are suitable to be used for their designated purpose and some are unsuitable and thus have no use to us which we dispose of. And we “sanctify” certain vessels daily, such as washing the dishes that we eat from so they’re suitable for that use again.

Well with that in mind, now think about ourselves as a house. We are the house of God, that’s where he dwells today. And that house has got all sorts of vessels in it. Our life can be pretty complex, there’s a lot going on in it, some more than others. As Christians we should want God to use us and work in our lives. But how is your house going?

What can God use you for? Because God isn’t going to use a vessel that isn’t clean and suitable for the use of glorifying his Son. If our lives are full of stuff dishonoring to God and unsuitable for his use… and worse still, dedicated to other uses and not to God… well he can’t and won’t use us. A lot of Christians are therefore extremely limited, and self limiting, in how God can and will use them, because they’ve got so much stuff on board which needs to be purged or cleansed… areas of life yet to be truly surrendered and cleansed by God.

A lot of things in my life and truthfully in all our lives are not necessarily dedicated to God at all. They’re not at his disposal for his use. And they are dishonourable to God. And this is quite confronting to consider, because when I look at my life, and I make some self judgment, then I feel pretty darn bare with what is actually dedicated and useful to God. Could God use me? Well he can, has and does, somewhat miraculously, but I really need to get my own house in order first before my life can truly impact elsewhere “enlarge my coast”.

Remember, we are saved “for his name’s sake”. It’s easy to say we want God to use us… but the question is… WILL God use us? If there’s so much stuff in our lives dishonourable to him, that dishonours his Son, that’s not even dedicated to him or at his service or for his purposes… well what do you expect him to do… violate his word for us? There are no shortcuts in the Christian life, God sees our house clearly. We can be such experts on others people’s lives and what they need to fix… what then do you think of God’s ability to do so. If we want to bring honour to God, we need to be sanctified, we need to be clean…  in Isaiah 52:11 the Bible says “Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.”

Yes as we are all earthen vessels, it’s amazing that God can use any of us if any way, shape or form… but there is great treasure inside us once we are saved… and there needs to be a clean up operation inside… not a hypocritical self deceiving religious overhaul, but the work of the Holy Spirit in truly producing a person sanctified for God’s use. And the thing is, no one is above this, because we ALL have things in our life that bring dishonour to God. Are we going to purge them out so God can and would use us?

What kind of a vessel are you claiming to be in God’s house? Many people say they’re in, this world does still not lack for professing Christians. Are you a vessel of God’s mercy? Are you truly saved, did you truly receive his salvation? … Some people are vessels of wrath… did you know that? They are only fit for one use and purpose. They’re fitted to destruction. But that’s not me… and I hope not you.

Finally, I want to think about the word “prepared” in those verses. Because often we are just not prepared for God to use us. Why did God use and bless Ezra? Well in Ezra 7:10 “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.” What about king Jotham… what was the secret to his success? 2 Chronicles 27:6 “So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the LORD his God.”

The word prepared has “pre” in it. Pre-cede, pre-lude, pre-vent… it means before something. So before God uses a man or woman, he will prepare that person. And we also have a responsibility in that too. How’s your preparation gone? Has the Holy Spirit prepared you? Remember the five unwise virgins who missed out because they were not prepared. Hopefully we are not only prepared for God’s use… but are we prepared to meet God at his coming? No wonder there is going to be so much shame in that day.

How practically can I prepare my life for God’s work? … Then I thought about John the Baptist’s ministry!! because he was sent to PREPARE the way of the Lord! Where is the repentance? Where is the change of heart and mind toward sin unto Jesus Christ? Where is the change of heart and mind from my way to God’s way? Until we are ready to change and cede to what God wants, we will never see God’s mighty hand in our life. Do you really want to see God work in your life and for him to use you in a way that you could never have dreamed or imagined? It begins with preparation, and repentance prepares the heart for the arrival and reception and working of Christ. May God give us all the change of heart that the dying thief had… when he went from vicious verbal assault on Christ to saying please remember me.

I’ve always thought, people never change. And most people never do. I’ve noticed in life that not many people ever have a true change of mind, or change of heart… particularly in relation to the truth of God’s word. They might try to change themselves, but God never changes them, because their heart was never prepared in repentance that the Holy Spirit works in every believers life. They’re never truly yielded to God’s plan and God’s purpose. Hopefully we look at the kind of vessel we are, hopefully we look at our house first long and hard before solving other house’s problems. We all need to get our house in order, and may God help us all in doing so in anticipation of God using us for his glory in our lives in this coming year. Thank you for reading this blog, and God bless you in your new year.

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