19/05/2012 - Look out not to betray The Lord!

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And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him; and he said, “Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel; now therefore, please take a gift from your servant.

II Kings 5: 15

In the healing of general Naaman, commander of The Syrian army, we are taught many lessons. The main one is that the man raised by The Lord in Samaria was actually a man of God. His notoriety was everywhere and a captive girl knew that Elisha was holy, a man used by The Most High. How good it would be if all Christians were equally recognized by everybody.

Elisha showed he was a servant of God for not respecting the presence of the general more than he was expected to respect The Lord. He was not offensive to that man, but he spoke out what God had commanded him to. The servants of The Most High must never get involved with confusion, sin, nor are they to allow cowardice to take over their lives. People must just recognize in us, Christians, the fact that we do honour the ministry to which we have been called.

As he saw the miracle happening, the so important general turned to the man of God. If the Prophet had put himself out of the position as a divine ambassador to answer the general, just like ordinary people would have done, the latter would not have come back. We need to be careful not to drive the lost into belittling our stand in The Lord. As ambassadors of God we do not have to bootlick anybody.

Elisha’s attitudes – and his fearlessness in getting the message of The Lord across – provoked a great change in the heart of that military officer who recognized that, in the whole world, there was no God like The Lord. That must precisely be the purpose of our ministry. We must not covet anybody else’s gold nor bow down before anybody – on account of their being any authority whosoever – since there is no greater authority than that of a minister of The Most High.

The general was mistaken as he offered Elisha the opportunity to take a blessing out of his hands. If the Prophet had accepted it he would have put The Kingdom of God to shame. After all, what does the ungodly have to offer to bless the divine work? Their riches are corrupt and their gold is often conquered illegally. A man of God has to make a covenant with The Lord, thus, from a shoelace to all the riches of the world, he will not accept anything as payment.

We have the power to bless or to curse. The fig trees that bear no fruits will be prevented from producing them provided we let ourselves be led by our God. We are anointed to represent The Kingdom of our Father and our needs will be met by The One who has never denied any of His promises.

The missionary girl was right. The Syrian general only had to be before the prophet for him to be recovered from his leprosy. Would anybody be wrong if they made the same statement regarding you? Those who do not live in the presence of God are sinning.

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares