Weekend: The axe head principle
I like to share encouraging testimonies of God’s mighty deliverance on the weekend. However, this weekend, the mighty hand of God may just want to reach into your heart and give you a Holy Ghost tune-up to recapture His vision for your life.
Have you ever lost your confidence? Has your peace lifted from you? Has the fire in your belly gone out? A look into the life of the prophet Elisha may help you to reclaim any missing components of your Christian walk.
Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth with a Mission (YWAM) was the first person I heard to share this teaching—the Axe Head Principle—pulled from 2 Kings 6. The lesson he taught has stuck with me throughout my life.
A group of young prophets were building a home for themselves when one of them lost an axe head. It flew off the handle as he was chopping down a tree and landed in the Jordan River. To make matters worse, he had borrowed it from someone else. This young man called out to Elisha for help.
“Where did it fall?” Elisha asked. The young man took him to the spot and Elisha cut off a stick and threw it in. The iron axe head floated to the surface and was recovered.
I don’t know about your experience, but according to my vast scientific knowledge, iron does not float. And according to some Christians’ life experiences, once things start going south, they never get better.
However, scientific law sometimes has to take a back seat when God comes on the scene, and the downward spiral of your life must halt and reverse when God throws in a stick.
Let’s imagine that Elisha was still alive and visited your home. You might tell him that you lost your confidence in God, your peace left you, or your fire died out.
He would respond to you just like he did with the young prophet. “Show me where you last had your confidence.”
You would then walk him back to the spot where you last moved in confidence. (This principle, of course, also works for peace, joy, freedom, the fire of God, etc.)
There he would throw in a stick and you would recover the missing fruit in your life.
But, Elisha is not here. The Holy Spirit is, however, and He is more than capable of walking you back through the past few days, weeks, months, years—even decades, if need be—to help you discover when you last had the peace of God operating in your life. And instead of a stick, He will stir those waters with the cross of Christ.
Right after the time in your life when you last experienced the peace or confidence of God, what changed? Did you involve yourself in something that went against the heart and purpose of Jesus? Was it something you never really dealt with? He’ll show you if that’s the case, and He will give you the grace to quickly make it right. He wants you reunited with that confidence, peace, and fire more you can imagine. (Kenneth E. Hagin used to say that it only took about five seconds to truly repent—you repent, and then, with trust in God and obedience, you get right back on the course He’s set for you.)
Perhaps you never violated your conscience with an outward act of disobedience. Maybe you neglected doing something that the Lord had directed you to do. James 4:17 says, “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” Did you drop off on your time in the Word or fellowship with God? Did you clam up about your relationship with Christ for fear of what people might think? Did you neglect to forgive someone or to ask them to forgive you? Did you start harboring a grudge against a pastor, a church, a friend or a family member? The Holy Spirit will reveal to you how you lost that axe head, and again, He will give you the grace to quickly make it right.
The Holy Spirit is always very clear when He convicts you. He reveals some specific thing that has been standing in the way of your joy or peace, gives you the grace to repent, and redirects you in the right path. That is how the axe head principle works.
On the other hand, the voice of condemnation is vague. You will feel bad about yourself for all your flaws and will want to beat yourself up. You will think you deserve to be punished for your sinfulness. This is not how the axe head principle works. You may think, as you bang your head against a wall, that you are searching for the elusive axe head, but you aren’t. You are beating yourself up, and the Holy Spirit is not in that. Stop it now!
If condemnation describes you, then you may have found the lost axe head after all! The axe head you misplaced is the knowledge that you are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and that you are accepted in the Beloved! (Ephesians 1:6, KJV.) Pick that axe head back up, praise and thank God for it, accept His grace, soak in His great love for you, and get back on track.
How, where, or when you lost the axe head is not the main issue. The main point here is that God wants all obstacles removed so you can pick that axe head back up, rediscover your inner “lumberjack”, and press on in Christ, free and clear, for all you are worth!
Here’s to recovered axe heads!
“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21
“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” Jude 24-25