If you are a spiritually mature person or Christian leader, God always has someone in your life that he wants you to help mentor, or be more available to them to help in their spiritual walk. In the case of the prophet Elijah, it was Elisha who God wanted him to put special focus on. Elijah could have decided he would have taught at the school of the prophets and have been recognized and famous for his anointing. The funny thing is though, all the people at the school of the prophets, and all the "sons of the prophets," all said the same thing as each other ("know ye not your master will be taken from you today?"). None of the sons of the prophets had their own independent relationship with God, they just regurgitated what they were taught, all of the sons of the prophets were powerless. If you read in the book of Second Kings, Elisha had to constantly tell these prophets to shut up because the only thing they were good at it being a nuisance. Later on the sons of the prophets drop an axe-head into the water and since they are powerless, they have to depend on Elisha to work a miracle. The sons of the prophets almost kill themselves with poisoned food and they have to depend on Elisha to work a miracle. These are the 99 satan sent to distract and keep you occupied. Rather than try to be famous and teach a school of the prophets, Elijah obeyed God and instead mentored Elisha who eventually was ready to take over and operate at the same level Elijah had. Elisha is even recorded as doing twice as many miracles as Elijah. Whenever you mentor someone you should plan for them to go farther than you. Even Christ told his followers they could do greater works than him.
In Christs parable of the 99 sheep and the one that is gone astray, the 99 in the fold represents the people in your life that are content and not seeking anything more of God than they already have, yet they still try to depend on your leadership and mentorship without making any growth from it. They will say "amen" to your preaching and bobble their heads in agreement to your every word. They will click "like" on all your Facebook statuses and share them. But ten years down the road they will be in the same place spiritually down the road, not having any visible growth from where they are now.
The one sheep that is gone astray represents those in your life that are seeking more of God, thus they have left being one of the 99 in the sheepfold of established church and consensus-based religious mindsets to go find more of God, these are the ones that are seeking where God wants them, and yet they are not fully sure and are confused, thus God wants you to help mentor and direct them to their place in him. As you help them they will constantly grow and although they will face and overcome struggles, they will not stay in bondage to the same struggles for 10 years.
Jesus Christ had a multitude of people who tried to follow him around, and yet he only mentored twelve of them, and of those twelve only had three which were his inner circle he was called too. Christ routinely tried to get rid of his followers that God had not called him to help mentor.
John 12:65-67, "And Jesus said, 'Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.' From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, 'Will ye also go away?'"
Christ purposely tried to get rid of all his followers except the ones God called him to mentor. Whenever Christ had a large following or crowd he would preach 'hard sayings' so that the people would decide they would rather not follow him. As a result, in the above passage in the book of John, Christ preached a hard saying "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no part in me." When Christs followers heard him say this all of them left him except for the twelve God had called him too.
Did God call your followers to you or did the devil call them to you to distract you? Only some are called by God, these will be the ones that constantly grow and seek God, the ones that never grow but stay stagnant are the ones the devil called to follow you.
So when you decided to be prideful and get 5000 friends on your Facebook so each of your status would have 200 'likes' and you'd seem like a big shot you entered rebellion against God's will. most of these 5000 people will be dumb sheep with the dependency mindset, perpetually drinking milk like babes and never ready for meat. Ten years down the road they still have the same struggles they do now, they never grow much in God, they are not seeking an independent relationship with him where they hear his voice and are guided by him, nor do they want this, they are not looking for God's calling and anointing for their life. These "99" are the people that satan sent to you to distract and keep you occupied so that you would be too busy to help the "one" that God actually wants you to help.
So for the Christian leaders, while you used all the worldly gimmicks and carnal seeker-sensitive church growth strategies, while you sought the high place in your denomination and church structure, and stood around at the conference comparing your congregation size with the other pastors and determined that yours is the biggest.... All you have shown is that your rebellion against God is the biggest. Go ahead and think you are the best spiritual leader in the city, but when you lift up your eyes looking up from the pit of hell it will be too late and God will not have any second chance left for you. If you are a person that seeks honor from man, you have a baptism of fire ahead of you and your soul will either be saved fearfully "as through fire"(Jude 1:23 if you manage to repent) or the other option is that your soul will be destroyed in hell-fire (leader with reprobate heart).
Are you seeking God's heart? You will look for the 'one' he wants you to help, and pray that God removed all the people who follow you who God did not call. You are not afraid to speak the hard truth and lose followers.
Are you seeking honor from man? You will choose to stay with the 99, in rebellion against God, keeping you preoccupied so you have no time to help the few individuals God called you to. You will have fleshly seeker-sensitive sermons, and your Facebook statuses and prophetic words will be geared as to what will get the most 'likes' and 'amens' rather than what the Father is speaking.