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. 2 Kings 5
It’s one thing to hear a message or a word from the Lord but another thing to ENGAGE AND ACT UPON IT! The New Testament teaching on this is found in the Book of James,
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. James 1
THE BLESSING IS IN THE DOING OR OBEYING.
Naaman LEFT HIS HOUSE and went to Israel to seek his healing, but God had much more for him. We may be drawn to God one way, but He wants to change us in far more important ways. Naaman had to leave the familiar and move. WE MAY HAVE TO CHANGE OUR STANCE OR VIEWPOINT ON SOMETHING TO ALIGN WITH GOD’S UNDERSTANDING. We have all been brought up in an imperfect world and exposed to its influences far more than most of us realise. God may be trying to shift our mindsets today and the first step may be ‘TO LEAVE OUR HOUSE’ and step into something new and unfamiliar.
I think it may have been Graham Cooke who said, ‘What we think about God is the most important thing in our lives’. Since we’ve been born into this world and lived with it’s people we all have baggage that needs to be dumped.
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. 2 Kings 5
Naaman brought some of the riches he’d accumulated as a gift to the servant of the Lord, but on this occasion it wasn’t received. Many times we think that the things we treasure in our old nature will be of value to the Lord and the Church, but often the opposite is true. This is often a powerful mindset in religious people, we’re bringing something of value from ourselves into the things of God, but they don’t mix. They say the only thing we’ll take with us after this life is our name, nothing else.
We have to get rid of earthly thinking concerning matters of the Kingdom and many of us are being called to step out of those mindsets, that’s LIKE LEAVING OUR HOUSE. Stepping out of what we’ve constructed to cope with life here and moving on to Kingdom thinking and living during our brief sojourn here.
May the Lord bless and keep you today. Immanuel, God is with us.