When Elisha was a prophet, the country was prosperous yet poor towards God; it was the era of apostasy. When Elijah was departing from the world, Elisha, the disciple of Elijah desperately followed him, and requested a double portion of Elijah’s spirit (2 Kings 2:9). The era we live in now is not much different from the time of Elisha. And I would’ve asked the same thing if I were him.
While I was praying with such state of the mind, God popped this word in my mind, “community”. The power of Elijah we need in this era comes to the community as a whole, not to one individual. Such power comes to “us” not to me. Even though the power of God might be revealed through one individual, the source of such power lies in the community.
Thinking it over, this was the lesson God has taught us all this time. When our community prayed together as one with one heart, we experienced the power of God without exception. The first thing I did as a pastor of our church was conducting the ‘seven months prayer of ‘the wall of Jericho’. We prayed together with one heart, requesting God to send us the souls we can serve. And as soon as the seven month prayer had ended, God sent us the souls to serve as if He wanted to show off. We all agreed that God’s blessing that was poured out at that time was unexceptionally great. In season two of my ministry, we all prayed together to God to open the gate of Heaven. Since then, God started to give special spiritual gifts to our church. When our community prays together with one heart, the power of Elijah is bestowed on us.
In the Bible, we can find many examples of how the community of God experiences God as one. The book of Joshua is full of such stories. The Bible tells us when the community obeyed God’s Word as one, they experienced victory over spiritual battles. When they went the other direction, they undoubtedly failed. Many testimonies similar to this can be found in our community if we look back at our church’s journey . What God considers important is “our community united as one”. At the same time, what Satan wants to destroy the most is our community united as one. I feel such spiritual battles all the time since I am placed in the center of our community. We lost battles when our hearts separated and when we misunderstood each other for absurd reasons. We always won the battles when our community was united as one.
United as one, we become the path to God's power.
From pastor, JiWon Choi