Monday 13 Mar 2023

March 13: 2 Kings 5:3-7

Key Verse: 2 Kings 5:5
‘By all means, go,’ the king of Aram replied. ‘I will send a letter to the king of Israel.’ So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing.

Devotion:
In amongst all of this conflict, God chose to use a young girl to reach an influential person in the king of Aram’s army: the commander! This young girl was taken captive and she was set to work serving the kings wife. When she heard Naaman had leprosy her faith sprang into action and she told the commanders wife he should get to see the prophet who was in Samaria and he alone would be able to cure Naaman. You can imagine the conflict here, she was serving the wife of the commander against which her people were fighting! And yet she chose to listen to her heart, a heart God had filled with love for all His people, including her enemies!

This is the strength of her faith – that God would sort out the other details when she gave some information to the wife. She could not imagine the steps which happened next. First Naaman went to the king and asked if he could have time off to go and get healed by this prophet. The king was so indebted to Naaman for all he had accomplished for the army, he agreed to let him go and see the prophet in amongst his enemies!

Naaman didn’t quite get it! He took with him all manner of riches to try and pay for something God was going to do. He didn’t have a clue who was the power behind Israel! He got a letter from his king and he took that letter to the king of Israel! The girl had clearly told him to see the prophet, but he took his position and riches and went directly to the king instead.

If we don’t listen to God and take notice of what people are saying when they are telling us something from God, then we are going to miss the big picture and focus on the things we can think of. Not what God does! Nothing is impossible with God, but it takes a human to really mess things up before God!

Points to Ponder:
Are you listening to God?

Or are you listening to what you think God should tell you?