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Word of the Day: 2 Kings 5:10

Word of the Day

“And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean." 2 Kings 5:10

I really enjoyed reading this account of Naaman’s way to God. It’s good to be reminded of the many ways that God works!

We already talked about who Naaman was a little bit. MacArthur explains him so well. “He was a big-time soldier. He commanded a set of troops that were always raiding Israel. They would come across the border and they would fight and they would terrorize and raid Israel and they would take prisoners and haul the prisoners back to Syria. He was a Gentile. To Israel not only was he a Gentile but worse than that, he was a leper, he had leprosy, he was unclean, he was despicable on every count.” It’s interesting that to Israel Naaman had no worth, but with God, it was totally different.

I can’t imagine having a debilitating disease like leprosy. All of Naaman qualities couldn’t help bring him healing. When he did hear of an opportunity it didn’t take him long to go and find out. It didn’t happen the way he was expecting. He eventually was told by Elisha‘s servant, “The God of Israel is willing to heal you, all you have to do is go over to the river and go down seven times." As MacArthur says, Naaman was furious, he was a man of honor and a man of stature and a man of dignity and a man of nobility and he wasn’t going to humble himself in some kind of humiliating deal and go dump himself down seven times in some dirty river. He even says, "We have clean rivers in my area, I'm not going in your dirty river."

Pride could have prevented him from taking the dip in the Jordan but he relents and goes in and is healed! He was physically and spiritually healed!

This made me think of my obedience to God and the impact pride can have. Naaman obeyed because he wanted to be healed and that’s good, he received much more than he planned. In my life I want to strife to obey just because God tells me to. It’s a trust issue. It shouldn’t matter if I’m going to receive something, but just because of my love for God and what He’s done for me.

Lord, please help me to simply obey you….no pride….no unbelief….no doing it my way….just obey.

“By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” 1 John 2:3

Dave,

Dedicated to Prayer, Heb 4:16