A DEEPER REVELATION OF OURSELVES AND GOD

"And it came to pass, when the LORD was about to take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.” (2 Kings 2:1)

“So it was, when they had finished circumcising all the people, that they stayed in their places in the camp till they were healed. Then the LORD said to Joshua, ‘This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.’ Therefore the name of the place is called Gilgal to this day.” (Joshua 5:8-9) Gilgal means rolling away and because the Israelites obeyed the law of their God to make a covenant with Him in their flesh, He could now roll away all the reproaches which had fallen upon them as a nation in their sojourn from Egypt until then.

Finally, this was the sign that the slave was dead and the free man had been purchased through the covenant with His God. The old identity is the reproach of Egypt that we have to decide to cut away.

Even though we have had a touch of God once on our lives as Elisha had at Gilgal, we can lose that life and actually die if we do not continue to walk into a deeper revelation of God. The touch of God has done its work if it has created a driving hunger for a clearer vision of God. Spiritual development can never be forced upon anyone; it has to be desired because of the hunger from within. As Elijah told Elisha that he was going on to Bethel, Elisha did not hesitate to increase his experience with God.

“Then Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here, please, for the LORD has sent me on to Bethel.’ But Elisha said, ‘As the LORD lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you!’ So they went down to Bethel.” (2 Kings 2:2)

Bethel means “House of God” and it is Jacob who gave this city its new name because it was here that he finally found his lodging place with God. Until this time, his experience of God had been through others or because of others, but at Bethel, he communicated with God for himself. He found that in the House of God, he had found favor with God and God blessed him and assured him of his inheritance. He saw that he had been given a ladder by which he could reach God. It was not a ladder through worldly achievement or communication, but it was a ladder of heavenly communication that was initiated by the Word of God Himself. “And he called the name of that place Bethel; but the name of that city had been Luz previously.

This is the place where Jacob’s heart was so touched by God’s love and faithfulness that he needed to find a way to express to Him his gratitude. Bethel is not only a place of obedience like Gilgal, but also a place of communication and expression of our beings to God, and a place where we can find peace and rest.

At Bethel, this personal revelation of the reality of God to Elisha also became the seed to form a new identity within him as it had in Jacob. As a farmer, he had been formed from the knowledge from without, but at Bethel things changed. Now, his identity was being formed within by the Spirit of God as He made His home in him.

In His Love,
      Sigi

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