FIVE SMOOTH STONES - The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherds Bag

FIVE SMOOTH STONES — The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherd’s Bag

was disobedient to the word of the Lord. Therefore the Lord has delivered him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke to him ." Now isn’t it strange that the lion killed the man and not the donkey, and it did not eat either. Additionally, the donkey did not run off after having a lion attack its rider and kill him. None of these acts are natural, so there had to be some supernatural power which had authority to act. A number of things should be gleaned from this record. First is that gifting is not proven ministry. The young man was clearly one of the most powerfully gifted men of God in the Old Testament, yet he is only known as “the disobedient man of God” 1 Kings 13:26 (perhaps another oxymoron). He was not yet proven in his ability to obey God through testing, although his ministry was great and his intentions were good. Often when the devil recognizes great anointing, or calling, he will first attempt to destroy it at its inception where possible. He did this with Moses, as an example, and with Jesus, attempting to kill the promise by killing all the male children around the same age as the promised messenger. When this did not work he attempted to divert it by launching it prematurely. This happened to Moses when he attempted to bring the promised calling upon his life to pass through his own means. The result was his forty years in the wilderness until he turned aside to see the burring bush and received his call directly from the Lord. The devil also attempted this with Jesus in the wilderness. Matthew 4:8 “ Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me ." This temptation is so subtle. Jesus came to take rulership of all the kingdoms of the world (Psalms 2:9; Revelation 2:27, 15:4, 19:16). When the devil offered this to Jesus it was no idol proposal, nor was it of insignificant interest to Jesus, as this was His calling to accomplish. As a matter of fact, the devil had offered Jesus the goal of His ministry at the beginning of His ministry, if He would only do it some other way than God’s chosen way. This was a significant temptation, and had Jesus accepted it, in one scene

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