Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I think that was the very first hymn I ever learned, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." Dates me a bit, but I remember thinking, "Oh, this is fun. This is contemporary." It was contemporary when I was contemporary. But I haven't been contemporary for a long time. So, it's an old, old hymn. Great hymn.

Jill Briscoe: I love the thought of it. We can take everything to God in prayer. "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." We don't have a friend, we have an advocate with the Father. He's our prayer partner in heaven. And those of you that don't have a prayer partner, you do have a prayer partner. And don't ever forget it. He ever lives to pray for you. That's what Hebrews teaches. He ever lives to pray for you.

Jill Briscoe: And when you don't know what to pray for yourself, He is busy asking God, and God always answers Jesus' prayers. I do remember a few years back, being very, very down and discouraged and getting out of bed, dragging myself out of bed, and feeling very, very oppressed in my spirit. But by the time I dressed and gave myself something to eat, I was finding my spirit lift and lift and lift. And I thought, "You know, somebody's praying for me." And as quick as a wink, I heard that little voice, "I am. I am." And it was a real still moment for me. And that's why my spirits were lifting. I'm sure other people might have been praying, but somebody was definitely praying. He told me, "Why are my spirits lifting?" Because He is praying for me.

Jill Briscoe: And so, as we think, "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear." What a privilege to carry everything to Him in prayer. Remember, not only is it a privilege to come to Him with our requests, but He then takes our requests to the Father. No man comes to the Father but by Him. We don't need any other mediator except the man, Christ Jesus. And He is our mediator.

Jill Briscoe: Now, we've been looking at the lives of Elijah and we're going to have a little look into the life of Elisha. Little story that I want to use as a parable today in 2 Kings chapter 6. So maybe you'd like to turn to it. I hate to leave Elijah, there's still a lot to say about him, but I want to look at Elisha's life briefly in two incidents. This is one of them that we'll do today.

Jill Briscoe: We're in the middle of a series called "Prayer That Works" because prayer that works works at praying. And there's no shortcut. There's no shortcut to holiness, there's no shortcut to spiritual disciplines. There has to be some spiritual work if we're really going to become women of prayer, effective, powerful, wonder-working prayer.

Jill Briscoe: And so I want to talk today about sharpening your prayer skills. Sharpening your prayer skills. Let's read the little story. True story, miracle story. The company of the prophet said to Elisha, "Look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. Let's go to the Jordan where each of us can get a pole. Let us build a place there for us to live." And he said, "Go." One of them said, "Won't you please come with your servants?" "I will," Elisha replied, and he went with them. Well, they went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees. And as one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water. "Oh my Lord," he cried, "it was borrowed." Well, the man of God asked, "Where did it fall?" When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick, threw it in there and made the iron float. "Lift it out," he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.

Jill Briscoe: Now, wonderful little story hidden here in the life of Elisha. I want to draw a parable from it. I want to talk about losing your effectiveness, your cutting edge. I want to talk about what steps you can take to retrieve it. And this really is a story about somebody who found his ax head was blunted.

Jill Briscoe: Years ago I wrote a book called "How to Follow the Shepherd When You're Pushed Around by the Sheep." It's out of print, long time. But there's a chapter in that book called "Blunt Believers" and I used this little parable hundreds of years ago. And as I was teaching this series, I just gathered everything I'd ever done on Elisha and Elijah and remembered what a good story it is, what a good picture it is for us because this happens to the best of us, to the least of us and to the greatest of us. There are many, many pictures and illustrations in the scriptures that explains this experience of being sharp for God, everything going well, and then suddenly in the middle of all that activity, you find you've lost your cutting edge. You find you're blunted.

Jill Briscoe: Now, think of Elijah, for example, this happened to him. He was going along great. He'd just seen the fire fall from heaven on the top of Mount Carmel. Do you remember? And the next minute you see him in 1 Kings chapter 19, flat on his face under a broom tree wanting to die. What happened? He lost it. He had it, and he lost it. What did he lose? He'd lost his effectiveness. He'd been absolutely effective with God. The fervent, effective prayer of a righteous man avails much. And he'd been effective. And suddenly he wasn't effective anymore. Nothing he did was working. He was beginning to do everything wrong. He was depressed, he was down, he'd just failed, terribly failed. And here he was, flat on his face under his broom tree.

Jill Briscoe: So Elijah had that experience and as you go through the scriptures you find a lot of other of God's greats had it too. I mean, even think about the disciples. Peter walked on water for a brief time, and then he sank. And Jesus fished him out and said, "Where's your faith?" and put him back, rather wet, in the boat. But he did walk on water. He had it. He had this wonder-working power to walk on water. Then he lost it.

Jill Briscoe: And of course, the twelve with him, they had it. Had what? Effectiveness, usefulness, power with God. He sent them out two by two and he said, "Go into all the villages, preach the gospel, heal the people that are sick, cast out the demons." And they went and they did it and they came back and they said, "Even the demons are subject to us." They had it. And then they lost it. Peter followed afar off. "I will follow you to death." "Oh no you won't, Peter, you're going to deny me three times before the cock crows." And he did. He lost it. He lost it. What did he lose? He lost his fervency, he lost his effectiveness.

Jill Briscoe: Of course it's there in the people in the Bible. Paul writing to the Galatians says, "You ran well. What hindered you?" It's another way of putting it. You're running this race, you Galatians. You all came to Christ. There was a wonderful church. Everything was going great. And you were running this race. You were winning this race. You were physically, spiritually fit. And suddenly you stumbled. "What hindered you?" Now, in their case, it was religion. They got back into rules and rituals and all the things you had to do and it killed their sharpness. It killed their spirit.

Jill Briscoe: And so, I'm using this as a little story because it's an illustration of this very thing. Even if you get into Revelation, Jesus, risen, sends a message to the churches that are growing in Asia Minor. And he says to one of them, "You've lost your first love." They had it, but they lost it. He said, "You're just lukewarm. I wish you were hot or cold. One thing or the other. But this lukewarm stuff makes me sick." That's literally what God says. "I'll spew you out of my mouth. You make me sick when you're lukewarm." Now, you were hot. Now, you're lukewarm. You're not even cold. You know, I do like commitment to something.

Jill Briscoe: I was in Laodicea. We did a Holy Land trip and we did the seven churches, the sites of the seven churches. And the guide that was with us told us something very interesting. She said, "Look where this city of Laodicea is." And the city of Laodicea is sort of down in a valley. And up on the mountains are the hot springs. And they began tumbling out and channels had been made to bring the water down to Laodicea, which was in the valley. But by the time it got to Laodicea, the hot springs were lukewarm. And so, people reading that letter would understand exactly what God meant. "I wish you were hot or cold." But you're lukewarm. They knew what lukewarm was. Lost the heat of their love for God, their first love.

Jill Briscoe: So, in the scriptures, this is a normal thing that can happen to us. It happens to all of us. It certainly happens to me. And so, I'm going to use this little story as a parable. First of all, he had it. Very simple outline. He had it.

Jill Briscoe: Now, who was this young man? Let's ask the question. He was a Bible school student. Elijah had established some schools of the prophets, communities of believing young men, and their wives and families. And he began to teach them, pass on the treasure of faith they had had and keep it pure. And Jezebel got after them and destroyed all the altars in the land and got after the prophets and caught them and tortured them and killed them and their wives and children, everything. And Obadiah, a godly man, a secret disciple in Ahab's employ, had hid a few of them in a cave. Anyway, things were a little bit better after Elijah's conflict on the top of Mount Carmel. And she had not been rounding them up quite so much, but it was still pretty dangerous. And after that event on the top of Mount Carmel, when the fire fell and all the people shouted, "The Lord's God! What are we doing serving Baal?" And they killed all the prophets of Baal. After that event, the schools of the prophets, the prophets came out of the cave, the ones that were still alive, and they began to live in communities again. And Elijah began to teach them, and of course Elisha was his assistant. And Elisha and Elijah went around from school to school to school of these prophets. So he was being trained in the things of God.

Jill Briscoe: And yet it was a courageous thing. He was, he was a courageous young man to live openly in a community with Jezebel and Ahab still in control. And there are people today who risk their lives to get some training. I've been in many countries of the world where that is so. We take things so much for granted. I mean, would you have come out if you'd got a letter through your door that if you went one of your children would be killed? Would you have come? I want to tell you there's a lot of meetings like this with people who come today around the world who are in that situation.

Jill Briscoe: And this young man came out and said, "I'm going to join the community of the people." So he had great courage. He was committed. He was enthusiastic. And as in many instances, the devil oversteps his mark when the fires of persecution burn. You know, in the early church, he took a bucket of water and tried to put the fire out. And that's a silly thing to do. I remember cooking chips in England once, French fries to you. And I get my great big fat pan, you know, full of fat and throw in the potatoes that I've just chopped up. And I can't remember what happened, but it went on fire. It bubbled over. I think I put too many and there was water on them. I hadn't dried them off. And it bubbled over onto the flame, gas stove, and the whole thing just went up all over the place. And I picked it up and I threw it out the door and saved the house going down, but, oh, what a mess. I remember that. What I did was, was spread it all over the kitchen. And the same thing happens. If you throw water on a fire instead of smothering it, it'll spread it everywhere. And the devil, in his stupidity, threw water on the fire of the love of the people of God and he spread it all over the world. He does that through persecution.

Jill Briscoe: And so, they were making a mark. In fact, people were coming out of the woodwork saying, "I want to be a prophet! I want to be a Bible school student! I want to really serve God!" And so, they didn't have room. And so, they come to Elisha and they said, "It's too small again. We don't have room. We don't have room for our lectures. We don't have room for this and that and the other. Come with us and let's go build a bigger one!" And so, Elisha said, "Let's do it." And they invited him to go along and they began in great style. And this young man borrowed an axe, and an axe was an incredibly expensive tool. It was like a top computer if you like. It was the prize possession of people in those days. And so, he borrowed a very, very special thing that belonged to someone else because he didn't have one. And he went and he started cutting down those trees and there was nothing wrong with his enthusiasm. Those trees were going down, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Nothing wrong with his enthusiasm. Very, very good at making things happen if you like. And right in the middle, the ax head flies off into the lake.

Jill Briscoe: Now, when I'm talking about being committed to God, what am I talking about? Let me just digress here a little bit. I'm talking to be yielded to God. In faith, having received the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ. Living after the will of God, according to the Word of God, in the power of God, if you like. And those of you who have believed into Jesus, believe that He is your only hope of redemption and going to heaven. You've believed that. And you've yielded yourself to God. And in faith received the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, into your life. You're supposed to start living after the will of God, according to the Word of God, in the power of God. And it's when that system goes wrong, it's when it's not in order, it's when you've got a piece of that puzzle that's not working, that you'll lose it. You'll lose the ax head. You'll lose your cutting edge.

Jill Briscoe: I have a very old book called "Life on the Highest Plane," about this thick. It's a book that I was given when I was first a believer and I have it on my shelf next to my Bible. It's a wonderful book. It's written by an old-time missionary. Marvelous, marvelous woman. And in this book, she talks about yielding. What is it? And she talks about coming even as a missionary to the point where she had been enthusiastic, she'd been cutting down the trees, everything had been happening. Suddenly, something went wrong. She didn't quite know what it was. And she began to search. And she started by saying, "Am I really yielded to God? I had been saying, 'Must I give myself to Him?' But on that day, kneeling in spirit at the foot of the cross of Christ, I said from the depths of my heart, 'May I yield all that I am and have for time and eternity to Him who gave all for me?'" And so often we say, "Must I give God all?" Yielding is really coming and saying, "May I?"

Jill Briscoe: I think of a friend of mine who is president of a Bible school, who is caring for his wife who has Alzheimer's. And he gave up the presidency years ago to do that, to devote himself to Muriel, his wife. And in the many writings that he has written, which have transformed the lives of many, many people around the world about this experience, he says, "I don't have to look after her. I get to." And when you yield yourself to God, it has to be in that spirit. "Must I?" This grudging, you know, "What are you going to take away from me? Well, all right, I know I've got to yield to you." It's, "May I, Lord, because of what you've done for me."

Jill Briscoe: Let me give you a definition, her definition. Yielding is the definite, deliberate, voluntary transference of undivided possession, control, and use of the whole being, spirit, soul, and body, from self to Christ, to whom it rightfully belongs by creation and by purchase. In yielding to Christ, we crown Him Lord of all in our lives. Consecration does not confer ownership, it presumes it. It is not in order to be His, but because we are His, that we yield up our lives. It is purchase that gives title. Delivery simply gives possession. It is purchase that gives title. Delivery simply gives possession.

Jill Briscoe: Comes to mind a house in sale in Manchester, in England. It was our house, Stu and I had just got married. We bought a bank house. He was working for the bank and they enabled you to buy their houses. It was a little tiny row house, you know, in England, all little houses sort of next to each other, all attached, and ours was the one on the end. And so we bought it. There was only, it was great. We purchased it. We got the title deed in our hands. Stu came home and said, "It's ours." I said, "Great, let's move in." He said, "Well, there's only one problem. The guy won't move out." "Can't get him out!" "But I said it's ours." He said, "Yes, but he won't move out, and we can't move in until he moves out." We had the title. We had bought it. We had paid the price. Delivery simply gives possession and there came a day when he delivered it up and he got out and we moved in.

Jill Briscoe: And what a wonderful thing it is when we yield our lives to His. Consecration does not confer ownership. Say, "God, you can have ownership of my life." It just presumes it. It's not in order to be His, but because we are His, we yield up our lives. We get out, we, self gets out of the way and He takes possession in the yielding, in the consecration to God.

Jill Briscoe: There's a wonderful old preacher that preached over here called Vance Havner and he always twisted words, played on words. And he used a lot of hymns. He spoiled a lot of hymns for me, to tell you the truth, because he played with words with them. For example, "Take my life and let it be," you know. And there's a, there's a verse in there, "Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold." And he says, and I can't do his very Southern Mississippi accent. But he says, "We pray, 'Not a mite would I withhold,' and then we hold on with all our might." And he was always doing things like that. But that's the thing. We say, "Not a mite would I withhold." We sing it with great gusto, and then we hold on to our money and we don't give it, you know. And he said, "We pray, 'Take my life and let it be.'" That's what we pray. "Take my life and let it be."

Jill Briscoe: And, uh, many of us do that. Just let it be. Just keep your hands off it, instead of, "Consecrated, Lord, to Thee." You know, there's, there's a thing here. This wonderful lady, Ruth Paxson, worked in China for years and years and years. She wrote a poem and she said what we've got to do is yield. The Bible says we yield all our members. If this is easier for you to think of it, you've got members to your body, pieces to your body. You've got hands, you've got feet, you've got eyes, you've got ears. And just as an act of yielding, have you ever knelt down and spend some time with God and yielded up, because that's what the Bible says, "Yield up all your members to Him?" And she wrote this. Why should we do this? Because He yielded all up His members to save us and to take us to heaven.

Jill Briscoe: "Oh, hands outstretched upon the tree, nail pierced by shameless cruelty. Why, blessed Christ, had this to be?" A voice most loving said to me, "Dear child, these hands of mine were bruised that thine in ministry be used. In loving service such as mine, My hands were given to purchase thine. Oh, feet of Christ, so rent and torn, how could such suffering be borne? In life so often spent and worn, in death, must they be given to scorn? On mercy's errands thine may go, a free, glad helpfulness to show. It was for thee," the Savior said, "My feet for thine, so sadly bled. Oh, head of Christ, with thorn-wrought crown, in grief and agony bowed down. Why didst thy heavenly renown exchange for earthly jeer and frown? My child, beneath these thorns I bought thy intellect and all its thought. The glory crown was left for thee, that thou mightst give thy mind to Me. Oh, heart of Christ, oh, wounded side, oh, Man of sorrows, crucified, who in such anguish sinless died, hast thou done aught for me beside?" "Ah, child of mine, My heart was riven, that thou mightst live and love in heaven. That all thy heart, thy life may be surrendered joyfully to Me."

Jill Briscoe: Good stuff. I love these old books. Surrender and yielding and the fullness of God's spirit living in our lives. So that's where it begins. Yielded. This young man was yielded. That's why he was willing to be committed and enthusiastic and to take the risks he was taking. But there's a twofold act here, twofold act of surrender and faith. To be of any permanent value, she says, it must become an attitude. The decisive act in prayer of yielding all your members to Him, must be crystallized in continuous action. Surrender and faith must be merged into obedience. Obedience is just surrender and faith stretched over a lifetime. A step lengthens into a walk. So how do you surrender your life to Christ? You get on your knees. You yield your members. If it helps you like she did, "Here's my hands, here's my eyes, here's my," just go through it all. And then in faith, you appropriate the power you're going to need to walk in obedience according to the will of God that you learn from the Word of God. And a step into yielding leads to a walk. Obedience is just surrender and faith stretched over a lifetime. A step lengthens into a walk.

Jill Briscoe: So, how do we walk in obedience to God's will? How do we practice the will of God in a daily, hourly, moment-by-moment trust in a moment-by-moment Savior, who's giving us the power to do it? Well, first of all, to know the will of God, you've got to be family. You've got to be family. He's got to be your Father, and you've got to know it. You've got to be born again. You've got to receive the life of God. You've got to be family. He sent the Spirit into our heart crying, "Abba, Father!" You can know if you have the Holy Spirit. If there is a sense within you that reaches up to heaven saying, "My Father, my own dear Daddy." The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are His children. That's what the Bible says. And if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not a Christian. That's Romans 8. If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not a Christian. So, make sure that you have received Christ by His Spirit into your life, that you have invited Him in. He doesn't drift in. No man can give you the Spirit by laying on hands or anything like that or baptizing you. You have to receive the Spirit yourself. And then you're family.

Jill Briscoe: How do you get to be family? Well, it's not by your own effort, and it's not by inheritance. Just because your parents were Christians, doesn't make you family. You have to receive the Spirit of Christ. You have to receive Him, 1 John 1. "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God." And then you're family. And when you're family, you know what Daddy would do.

Jill Briscoe: Now, I come from a very wealthy family. My dad started knocking on doors when he was 16. He said, "I'll never work for anyone else but myself." He left school. He knocked on doors and he said, "Have you got any bicycles to repair? I want to repair bicycles." And they said, "Yes, we've got bicycles," because hardly anybody had a car when my Daddy was young. And so he took their bicycles into the garage of his parents' house and he began to repair bicycles. And then he grew from that and he'd knock on doors and say, "Do you have an old car that you need me to repair?" And he went into car repair. And he grew to be the biggest auto agent in the north of England, and he had a very, very vast business. And that's how he began.

Jill Briscoe: And my sister took over that business from him. She was, she was a race car driver. She raced in all the big Monte Carlo rallies and all of these things for him. He had his own racing stable of cars and all of this, and she was his driver. And she went to school, became an engineer, and she came out top. She was the only woman. And she could take a car to pieces on the race track and put it together. I can't remember how many minutes. But she was something else. And that's my sister. She's the greatest girl in the world. She learned to fly. She's older than me. And she's got her own plane. She's up there learning to fly. She said, "It took me three years to get those exams. I don't know what's wrong with my mind." But you've got to, you've got to take a lot of guts to do something like that. And that's Shirley.

Jill Briscoe: When my dad got cancer and died in his 50s, my sister inherited and took over the business. And she began to run it. And my mother, who owned the business, and the family who owned the business, in those early days, had many dilemmas. We had many big decisions to make. And I remember sitting in a board meeting in my father's office block. And my sister at the head of the table, and the board members there, and my mother and I sitting there, not knowing anything that was going on. And this big problem came up. And my sister said, "Now then, what would Daddy do?" "I know what he would have done. This is what we'll do." And she ran that business and has ever since, on that principle. "What would Daddy do?" "What would my Daddy do?"

Jill Briscoe: Now, you can run your Christian life like that. And should. So something happens. "What would Daddy do?" "What would He want done? What would His will be? What would His word be to me on this particular thing?" And of course, we have a help because we have His word to us on a particular thing. But we also need to ask that question. "What would Daddy do?" So, the will of God, born in the heart of God, is laid out in the Word of God, and we don't need to speculate. For example, I had a woman say to me not long ago, "God wouldn't want me to be unhappy. So, I'm not happy with my husband. But I figure out I'd be very happy with hers." And she didn't put it quite as crassly. I put it like that for her when I was summing up what she'd told me. "God wants me to be happy. He wouldn't want me to be unhappy. I'm not happy with this husband, but he looks a nice husband and we get on well and we work together. And maybe I'd be happy, and God doesn't want me to be unhappy. So, if he wants me to be happy and I'd be happy with this man, then," you know. Now, what would Daddy say about that? It's obvious what Daddy would say about that. Right?

Jill Briscoe: Sometimes it's very easy to find out the will of God. Don't sit there saying, "Well, I don't know what God wants me to do because, you see, I'm not happy." You know what God wants you to do because He says, "The marriage bond must be kept in honor and let no man put asunder what God has joined together." So, you know what He said. You don't need to say, "Well, what's the will of God? If only I knew what God wanted me to do. I'm in this bad marriage." No, you know what God wants you to do. And He gives you the power to do it. "What would Daddy do?"

Jill Briscoe: I had a kid ask me on a missions weekend, "Well, say to me, 'God wouldn't want me to be lonely. God wouldn't want me to be unhappy. God wouldn't want me to be lonely.'" "So, he wouldn't want me to be a single missionary. So, I'm going to stay put here in the United States. I'm going to be busy for God. I'm going to be doing all the things I should in my church. And I'll stay put till the man of my dreams comes along and we'll ride off to the African sunset together because God wouldn't want me to be lonely.'" So she was secretly and loudly praying in a prayer meeting I was in, "Lord, I'm willing to go," but she was really secretly planning to stay. She wasn't honest.

Jill Briscoe: "God wouldn't want to take my kids or wife into a dangerous situation where there's inadequate medical help or physical danger," a couple told me not long ago. "So we are shopping around missions to see which will give us the best deal." This did not use to be. It used to be a question of call, commitment, and trust out and you go where God tells you to go. Not now. "Does this mission give me life insurance? Will this mission let me come home? What about educating my children? Will this mission pay money for me to go to the international school, or will I need to home school?" So, "What would Daddy say? What would Daddy do?" That's the key to finding out the will of God.

Jill Briscoe: "God wouldn't want me to be bored. So it's okay to experiment, push the envelope, take health risks." Yet your body, the Bible says, is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It's not right to mess it up. God's will. God's will. Now, how is this going to work? Understand what the will of the Lord is, Ephesians 5:17 says. Be in the Bible on an ongoing basis. Ask God, "Give me the desire of my heart to do Your will as I find it according to Your Word." Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you to do what He gives you to understand is the right thing. Psalm 143:10, "Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God and may Your good Spirit lead me on level ground." So just have this little action plan, you go home and you yield to God. And then you commit to letting Him possess the whole house. He purchased you. He's the one that should take possession. Let Him do it. All of you, surrender. And then in faith, begin to be obedient. What do I mean by in faith? I mean trusting Him to give you the power to do what you're not going to be able to do. You can't. He never said you could. He will. He always said He would. God only expects failure from us. He knows in our self, we have no power. So He gave us the one who can live the Christian life. Who is that? Jesus. He lived the Christian life, right? Could He do it? Uh-huh. Who do you have living within you? Christ. Can He live the Christian life? Yes. Can you? No. So dressed in your humanity, you yield, you surrender, you rest in His power. And then you are obedient. You step out. You do the thing. And as you do it, you find yourself empowered from within to do what you have physically started to do.

Jill Briscoe: I think of standing outside the very wild place in my youth ministry days, not having the courage to go inside. And in obedience, going in without the feelings. They wouldn't come in with me. And when I got myself in, I had to take the first step to walk into that place, not knowing what was going to happen, but I just knew. How did I know to go in there? Because He said, "Go into all the world." Not expect all the world to come to you. "Go into all the world." That was my world. Those were kids that lived in my neighborhood. They didn't know Jesus. He said, "Go and tell them about me." Now, this is all in here. This is the will of God, according to the Word of God. So what do we do? We are obedient. And I was trying to be obedient. But as I physically willed myself in there, the power kicked in. And when I got in there, I had all that I needed. I knew what I was going to say. I knew what I was going to do. I said, "Take me to the manager." They took me. It was very exciting. I got there. I thought, "Lord, what are we going to do when we get to the manager?" And the manager said, "What do you want?" And I said, "Uh, I want your platform." He said, "What for?" And I said, "I want to talk to these kids." About a thousand kids in there. Beatles were playing. Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, Pretty Things. Of course, I didn't know they were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I didn't know who they were, nor did anybody else. They were 17 and 18 years of age. And so he said, "What do you want the platform for?" And I said, "I want to tell them about God." And He's real, and the Bible's true, and there's power to change. And he said, "No, you can't have my platform until, until you've sat down there, young lady, and explained it all to me." He said, "I've waited all my life for somebody to explain these things. I don't go to church. I run a place like this." But he said, "If you will satisfy my questions, you can have my platform." "You can have my platform."

Jill Briscoe: I'm no great big evangelist. I'm just a little mother here with three kids at home. But you see, according to the Word of God, I am to go into all my world and preach the gospel. And if they won't come into church, and they won't come to our youth work, then I have to go to them. It's as simple as that. He says, "Go. How will they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach unless they be sent?" So it's all quite simple and you just do it a step at a time. I didn't know what to do when I got inside, but it was waiting for me. I knew once I got there after obedience, and the power, after you have been obedient, will be there for you to continue. And the knowledge that you will need and the wisdom you will need to know what to say and what to do will be there after you physically have been obedient to whatever it is God is calling you to do.

Jill Briscoe: And so, this is what happened. He had it. He was doing all of this. He was yielded. He was cutting down trees. The work was going on. God's purposes were being fulfilled. And then he lost it. He borrowed the axe. He goes on this men to mission trip. He arrives at the River Jordan. And suddenly, the ax head is in the lake. "Alas!" he cries out. "I've lost it!" And you can lose it at any place, right in the middle of your Christian service, right in the middle of a sermon. Yes you can. So it's so scary because the fullness of the Spirit, the connectedness with the Spirit is a moment-by-moment thing. And in a moment of pride you can be unconnected. And so it's a question like the song that that we were taught is saying, prayer becomes breathing. It is something you do in a place and a time, as well as this continual breath of connectedness, of awareness, the glance upwards, this in-touchness. That's the Christian life. That's the Christian life.

Jill Briscoe: Now, where did he lose it? Well, in the river. You can lose the cutting edge, your effectiveness in the river of your relationships. Wrong relationships. It's where David lost it, wasn't it? In the river of a wrong relationship. He stayed on the roof. He should have got off the roof. You can lose it in the sea of singleness. Spend all your life waiting to get married instead of accepting the gift of singleness that God has given you until, maybe, He gives you the gift of marriage and using it for Him. You can lose it in the lake of laziness. Your habits slip. Disciplines are array. Lose it in the bay of busyness. Too busy to be blessed. You can lose it in the pond of pleasure or priorities. You can lose it in the stream of selfishness. You can lose it when you get old by thinking, "Well, I'll just retire." And retirement's all right, as long as you don't spiritually retire. I know people that are spiritually retiring. I did a radio interview and I said, "I just worry that some people retire." You know. I said, "I, I just want to have my boots on. March into heaven with my boots on." And he said, "Yes," he said, "some people really live with their bags packed. Ready to go to heaven. Not with their boots on, ready to march right up those golden streets." It's an attitude. And you can lose it in thinking, "I'm done. I've done my bit. Let somebody else do theirs." You can lose it in the waters of worry. You can lose it all sorts of places.

Jill Briscoe: But he found it again. What are the steps to retrieving it? First of all, confession. "Alas, Master, it was borrowed!" You've lost something very important and valuable. "Oh my Lord!" There has to be this, "Oh!" When we talk about confession, it's not, "Oh, I'm sorry for this and I'm sorry for that." You've got kids. Sometimes the kids come and they say, "Well, I'm sorry," or they say it through, have you ever forced them to say they're sorry and they do it through their, "I'm sorry!" "Say you're sorry to your sister." "Arrrgh!" Is that sorry? No. You know that isn't sorry. They know it isn't sorry. They're not sorry. Very frustrating, forcing a kid to say they're sorry and they're not. But alas, Master. We don't have enough sensitivity to sin and we don't have enough sensitivity to what it's doing to Him. "Oh my Lord, it was borrowed!" And you know, the great heart cry of a Christian, "Cleanse me from my sin, Lord. Cleanse me from my sin, Lord. Put Your power within, Lord. Take me as I am, Lord, and make me all Your own. Keep me all this day, Lord, underneath Your sway, Lord. Make my heart Your palace and Your royal throne." Little chorus I learned, the week I was converted. And I, I say it many, many times a day sometimes. But just that glance, "Oh Lord, there I went again." You don't need to go home at night, although it's good to review everything that went through the day, keep short accounts with God, get back to Him, but you can just, when you know you've lost that, you know that you said the wrong thing or you, you, you gossiped or you did whatever it was, just glance heavenward, "Lord, forgive me. Cleanse me."

Jill Briscoe: So you confess. And then you ask to be cleansed. You have to identify the place. You have to call things by their real names. You know. "Lord, I have righteous indignation. Righteous anger about this." No, you don't. You lost your temper, you know. I mean, this is what you have to do. And we, we are so used to taking what's happening in our attitudes, our actions and, and calling it something else. But as you walk in the light as He is in the light, the, the light of God, as 1 John 1 tells us to do, shows us what's real. And he had to identify the place. He said, "That's where I lost it. There, in that spot. It flew off and it went there." And we have to do the same. And confession means that. You get on your knees and say, "That's where I lost it. Forgive me, Lord. Forgive me, Lord." David did it. Somebody comes to him after a year. He's living with Bathsheba. He's murdered her husband. And he says, "Thou art the man. You've done this." And he says, "I've sinned!" Immediately. "Lord, I've sinned." And then he says, "This is the place." "Lord, cleanse me from blood guilt." That's where I lost it. I lost it when I sent that man to his death. I lost it when I didn't get off the roof. That's where I lost it. And we have to help each other sometimes. This young man needed Elisha to help him identify the place. Identify the place.

Jill Briscoe: And then you apply the wood. Lovely picture. You put the cross over it. You apply the benefit of what Christ did when He died for you. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. There are benefits to what Christ did on the cross. What are the benefits? You can be clean. You can be cleansed on an ongoing, moment-by-moment basis so that you don't lose your cutting edge, so that you can retrieve your cutting edge. You apply the wood. And God says, "You're forgiven." And this all happens in prayer. Happens one prayer at a time, one moment at a time, one tree at a time. It happens moment by moment, step by step. So, it's sort of just a nice little parable. And I don't know where you are. And you might be connected. You might be swinging, you know, away, and the trees might be falling, and everything's fine. But you know something? Watch it! Because even before today is out, be so sensitive to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, saying, "Uh-uh!" Now, sometimes you'll know like this young man knew. If he'd gone bashing those trees with the handle and no ax head, what would have happened? He would have hurt the trees. And often you know if you're out of touch. Because what you're trying to do to help somebody, what you're trying to do to say somebody, it's just not working. And you've got the handle in your hand, and you've lost your touch. And something needs to be confessed, and something needs to be seen to in your life. Something needs to be done. So, I hope that little story helps. I'd like you to read it again. Think about it. Use it in your quiet time. Do you have it? Or have you lost it? Put out your hand. Take it to yourself. That's what Elisha said, "Put out your hand, your spiritual hand. Take the power of the Holy Spirit back to yourself." Be grieving Him, resisting Him. Let's confess it and get right with God.

Jill Briscoe: Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you for this great little story. And thank you, Lord, because all of us can connect at some point. It might be just such a little thing. It might be an attitude. It might be a little tad of pride. It might be conceit. It might be jealousy. It might be temper. It might be lack of trust. We don't really think You're big enough, great enough to help us. Whatever is not of faith is sin. It might be all sorts of things, Lord. Show us the place. In prayer, that's what prayer's for. Show us the place. Help us to identify. Where did we lose that? What happened to us? And then, Lord, help us to say, "Oh, alas, God, it was borrowed." We have a borrowed life. We live on borrowed time. And, Lord, help us to sense the urgency of being connected, in tune, step by step with the Spirit. Lord, help us to take to ourselves again the power of God. To be Your person, Lord. Cleanse us. Forgive us. Fill us. As we yield our members to You. As we get out of the way and let You have total possession of what You purchased, Lord, in our hearts and lives. May there be great joy and peace. May we rest in the good of it. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.