2 Kings 6 , Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “Behold now, the place before you where we are living is too limited for us. 2 Please let us go to the Jordan and each of us take from there a beam, and let us make a place there for ourselves where we may live.” So he said, “Go.” 3 Then one said, “Please be willing to go with your servants.” And he answered, “I shall go.” 4 So he went with them; and when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. 5 But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, “Alas, my master! For it was borrowed.” 6 Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” And when he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there, and made the iron float. 7 He said, “Take it up for yourself.” So he put out his hand and took it.
The power to live the Christian life and serve the Lord is a borrowed power. The Christian life is an “instead of” life. His ability instead of my limited ability. His strength instead of my weakness. As a matter of fact, 2 Corinthian’s says that He desires to manifest His strength through my weakness. Apart from Him weakness is all I have to offer; but the glorious news is that the offering Jesus wants me to give to Him is my weakness, that through the offering of my frailty and fallenness He can manifest His limitless power and ability.
As I said yesterday anytime you live on something you’ve borrowed from someone else you have to be especially sensitive to how you steward it. In their carelessness the ax-head was lost. When Elisha was told that the ax–head fell into the water he simply asked “Where did it fall.” Once he was shown where the ax-head fell into the water, he cut off a stick and threw the stick to the very place where the ax-head had sunk. When he did that, something miraculous happen; the ax-head supernaturally floated to the top, transcending all natural laws of gravity. When it floated to the top Elisha said “Take it up for yourself,” and having been told that, the young prophet who lost the ax-head put out his hand and took it. Having taken it, he was able to once again put it to use.
The stick thrown into the water is a symbol of the Cross, and when Elisha, who is a type of the Lord here, was told exactly where the ax-head (the power of the Holy Spirit) was lost, applied the Cross to that specific spot, and the power was supernaturally restored, against all logic, and he once again took hold of it and put it to use. When we sense but we are moving in our own weakness, no longer operating in the power of the indwelling Christ, then we simply need to hear the Lord ask us where it was lost.
When we get honest in our interior scan and are specific in our confession of sin, the miracle of forgiveness and the restoration of power always happens. Remember the blood of Christ shed at the Cross doesn’t cleanse excuses. His blood only cleanses, and always cleanses sin, confessed as sin. Elisha did not ask the young man where it was lost so that he could condemn him for losing it. He asked so that he could restore the ax-head to the young prophet. I can’t tell you how many times in my life that I’ve had to stop, being aware that the power seemed to have disappeared, and come to grips with where it had gotten lost. Every time I got honest, and specific, not only was I bathed in forgiveness; the ax-head was always restored, against all logic.