Elijah tells Elisha that he has asked for something big if he wants to be a firstborn inheritor of Elijah’s leadership among the other prophets.
He says, “If you are there when God takes me from you, you will receive it.”
How many mantles lie about the world fell upon no one because the one eligible for the double portion did not follow?
When Elijah sets out from where he is to where he will be taken, he retraces the steps he took to enter into his mantle. He will end up back in the Tishbe wilderness.
At each stop, he tells Elisha, “You can stay here.”
Elisha says, “Nope, I’m going with you.”
Following is submission. Submission is a position from which and by which honor releases anointing. When the mantle first fell upon Elisha’s shoulders, he experienced enough of it to recognize his calling. Elisha’s then immediately rearranged his relationships and life to follow so he would be there for the preparation.
The first time you feel the mantle, you will be called. You are not chosen until you receive your share of the mantle portion that is yours. Running off with an experience of the mantle with the empty-headed idea that “an experience” will turn into a double portion produces prodigalism.
You think, “I know the anointing. I experienced it when the mantle fell upon me while plowing with oxen. I am marked by God. So, all I need do now is go do what I want and that mantle will fall upon me again.
Without the “follow,” you experience the “fallow.” You are plowing, but you are not planting. You experience the mantle at the same level you experienced where you were following oxen, an experience is only a memory your rehearse without dropping anything that can produce a harvest into the soil.
Without the “follow,” you experience the “fallow.” What you follow determines what you plant. Oxen provide fertilizer but no seed. You keep turning over the soil but never planting for harvest.
When you follow, you experienced the mantle through the one you are following. “Do what I do, then you will do greater because I leave.”
When it comes to a mantle, you are tested for your following, not for calling. If you are with me, you will receive. You can be called and experience a mantle, but you must follow to wear a mantle. The measurement of the mantle comes in the following.
Elijah did not leave his mantle on a plowboy. He dropped it out of a whirlwind for a firstborn inheritor.
Elisha returned to lead the prophets as a firstborn inheritor with a double portion of the entire estate.
Elijah left a bunch of inheritors with a leader carrying a double portion of his spirit. He did not choose a successor or replace himself as we have commonly characterized the relational dynamic of the two.
Kingdom leaders do not choose successors unless they intend the estate to diminish when they are gone. They prepare and position inheritors so the One who takes them can anoint the leader of the multiple inheritors and the estate vastly increase in size and productivity in the next spiritual generation.
