It is very hard to find faithful church members. Many pastors in the Body of Christ will tell you that instability and unfaithfulness are the biggest obstacles that hinders the God-given vision. As a result, very few in the Body of Christ will be able to get the ‘double-portion’ of the Spirit.

Elisha, David, Ruth and Joshua are examples to follow that display servant-hood in their various capacities. Many tend to confuse the spiritual gifts and the anointing, but they are different. Someone can have spiritual gifts but no anointing. (I Corinthians 12) In the same way that you can be filled with the Holy Spirit, speak in tongues but lack the power of the Spirit. (Luke 4: 1 & 14) You have to go through the wilderness, endure suffering, pass the test of temptation, you have to be broken, pressed and ground and still remain standing in the Lord. Think about the process of the grapes and olives.

I have seen many persons with spiritual gifts, particularly those with the gift of Word of Knowledge and the gift of Prophecy, and many will say that they are anointed and powerful. But the anointing does not come to those who skip from church to church every year or two! In fact just the opposite happens. All the great men in the Bible had stability as their key to success in God!

Prosperity can only come when you are planted in God’s house body, mind, soul and spirit. I have over 30 years of combined experience in management. In the secular environment, when someone is looking for an individual to employ, particularly in light of a succession plan, the management personnel will look mainly at the faithfulness of the person in their past employment, not at their academic qualifications. They look at their work history to see how faithful they were in the past with one company, and once we see that there is no longevity with their work history, red flags would go up.

Can God trust you to anoint you?

Are you faithful as a steward?

Can your church leadership trust you with certain responsibilities for you to get the anointing?

Have you ever wondered why God had to bypass the sons of the prophets and invite Elisha – who was a faithful middle manager plowing his father’s field – to become Elijah’s successor?

In order to carry the Elijah Anointing or the double portion, you must be faithful in longevity wherever you are placed. God sees faithfulness beyond the church. There are people right now who are not Christians – not saved, but He is preparing them to be successors and to carry mantles that should be carried by people who are now saved. So they will get saved and come into the kingdom and bypass those who are currently saved. Realize that Elisha was not a member of the sons of the prophets – so your being saved is not a guarantee of your receiving the double portion; it is your faithfulness that determines that. So God bypassed all those that were in the sons of the prophets/school of the prophets at that time to give the mantle to one who was faithful on the job. So if God can pass the mantle to a faithful plow-boy, or to Amos a farmer then recognize that you are not indispensable and God can pass on the mantle to whomever he chooses once they are faithful Realize that after the mantle was cast onto Elisha, he still had a choice. He could either forfeit it or follow for the double portion. But what he did was renounce all his secular work and anything that would hinder him from pursuing his calling or cause him to look back. (I Kings 19: 19 – 21) He was not confused about his calling, neither did he have carnal desires for the things of the world! He sacrificed all his secular inheritance for a greater inheritance.

For you to walk in the double portion, you cannot hold your mantle while you carry Elijah’s mantle. There is one vision! You can’t pursue your vision and your leader’s vision at the same time. You must yield one up. In order to get the double portion, you have to be tested and walk through at least four great obstacles and overcome them successfully. (II Kings 2)

You must be willing to follow your leader through Jordan – which is not easy to cross; then through Gilgal, Bethel and Jericho! (Study them all! At no time did Elisha – when he served Elijah for over 13 years – let Elijah out of his sight, nor did he abandon him. He was always at his post.

To get the double portion, you must possess the spirit of your leader. Realize that Elisha did not ask for a double portion of Elijah’s anointing, he asked for a double portion of his spirit. Recognize that you can be anointed but have the wrong spirit.

There is a major shift now that is taking place. God wants to release mantles now – the Ruth mantle, the Elijah mantle, the Joseph mantle, the Cyrus mantle. But many disqualify themselves because of unfaithfulness. People are changing their churches and mentors faster than they change their own clothes. God is about to use some high school students and some unsaved within the secular to come in and bypass those who should be next in line. There are even those who call themselves Ruth and want Boaz while they abandon Naomi in the process and begin to create their own blessings during the midst of their testings. SO they have made themselves Orpahs!

Many want the anointing but are not willing to be broke in order to be broken; they are not willing to walk through lack to get to wealth; they are not willing to walk through the valleys and wildernesses to get to the mountain top. That is why so many people are appointing themselves titles but are not willing to walk the path it takes to get there. They need to understand that each five-fold gifting carries a level of grace; and if one appoints him/herself a title but does not have the grace for it, then they are sure to fail, and they will not be fruitful in the end. If one wants to know the difference with the anointing and the gifts, we should all read II Kings 6 for a revelation of the axe head. The Sons of the Prophets suffered heavy losses because they did not have the anointing to raise the axe head to the surface. In those days, the axe head would symbolize a major investment. It may seem like an insignificant matter, but God was showing that many had gone into the marketplace ministry without the anointing to break yokes and have suffered heavy losses.