January 1, 2022
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Reading along with us in 2 Kings? Here’s today’s reading:
2 Kings 5 (NIV)
Naaman Healed of Leprosy
1 Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.
2 Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”.......Continue Reading
2 Kings 5
The Lord hates deception, greed and dishonesty. It seems like one sin can give birth to other types of sin that may destroy a person.
2 kings 3-5
This is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. The first lesson is to see the different reaction of the king of Israel and Elisha. The one without a relationship with God freaks out and the one connected to God is calm and knows exactly what he is doing. We also see here that the miracles of God are predicated on faith and obedience, not on what makes earthly sense. And I would have loved to been a fly on the wall when Namaan came out of the water the 7th time. The thing that had plagued him for his life was now gone. And what faith and gratitude this generates. It is wrong for Namaan to think that somehow this God of Israel could be contained in a pile of dirt, but Elisha/God is patient with him. And Elisha breaks the stereotype that Namaan has by not accepting anything from him. That is why what Gehazi does is so wrong. He corrupts the lesson and makes Elisha like all the other “healers” Namaan had sought out. And he receives a fitting consequence for his deception….
This chapter is a great lesson for us on a couple of things that I know I struggle with. First God’s plan doesn’t always look the way we expect. Just like Naaman had a hard time seeing Elisha’s instructions working to heal his leporsy, he need to have faith that God’s solutions are sometimes beyond our understanding but that He always knows the bigger picture. The other thing is that we can’t repay God for all He has done for us. We could never give, serve, or worship enough to be even in any way and Elisha demonstrates that to Naaman but its too bad Gehazi didn’t see the lesson and sought repayment for God’s work and appropriately received the consequence of that action.
The captive girl knows her God and the prophet Elisha and believes in his ability to heal her master. I was thinking of our freedom and how would we behave and believe when our freedom was taken from us?
Naaman doubts. It is interesting that Elisha asks him to do the simplest thing to be healed. I sometimes wonder if our doubt and disobedience in the simplest of things hinder our healing or progress in our relationship with the Lord.