OT DAY 534 - Naaman's Healing Can Happen to You (Please click here for English podcast)

Silence

1.   Put on your “brakes” and stop for a moment of silence

2.   Wait for God. Breathe deep for God's peace and feel His presence. Exhale your worries.

Praise and Thanksgiving

1.   Think through your day, all the times that made you smile

2.   Thank God for all those moments, and for all those people

3.   Open your heart to praise the Lord

       Blessed be the Lord,
          for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me
          when I was in a besieged city.

        

                                     Psalm 31:21 

Confession and Repentance (Subjective Shifting Devotion Method http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html)

1.  Pray for the Holy Spirit to work in you:

     “Dear Holy Spirit, shine your light into the places of darkness in my life. Show me my sins, everything that blocks me from encountering God. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”

2.  Through the Holy Spirit, examine yourself for a short silence and then pray:

     "Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for our sins and being victorious over death and sin. I confess my sin to you(pause, to tell Jesus what the Holy Spirit has shown you). Forgive my sins by your blood and help me follow you. Holy Spirit, fill me that I may be able to receive your gift to love God and His people. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen."

The Word (2 Kings 5:1-14)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kings+5&version=ESV

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. 2 Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” 4 So Naaman went in and told his lord, “Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel.” 5 And the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.”

So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. 6 And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” 7 And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider, and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.”

8 But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. 10 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.” 11 But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. 13 But his servants came near and said to him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14 So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.                                                 2 Kings 5:1-14

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmax47l2hLU

    My Listening

           Today's passage continue to show Elisha's powerful gift of healing. And, the key of someone to get healing and that is faith and trust.

           If you were Naaman, would you believe in what the  slave girl says? If you were Naaman, would you believe in what Elisha's simple and seemingly nonsense way of healing? If I tell someone who is sick to dip into the bath tub one time a day for a consecutive seven days, do you think anyone would believe me and do that? 

           

     Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us: 

     (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) : 

                 The Naaman story illustrates how ordinary people sometimes see things that leaders can't see… This poor young girl who has been captured in war knows someone who can do something about it…
            One can perhaps understand Naaman's attitude to Elisha, who doesn't even bother to come to the door to see the great general but just sends one of his staff with some stupid-looking instructions. After all, Naaman knows how the exercise of spiritual gifts is supposed to work, and it's not by bathing in a muddy stream. It is again the ordinary guys, the members of his staff, who had the spiritual insight. They realize that one thing you can know about spiritual gifts is that you can never predict how they will work. There are no rules. God doesn't work by rules…
            Naaman gets the cleansing because God is demonstrating that there is a prophet in Israel - that God is speaking and acting there. 

   

John Goldingay. 1 and 2 Kings for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.124-125.

      So, do you allow God to speak through some ordinary or even unexpected people to you? Are you willing to accept the truth that God doesn't work by rules? 
      I still remember last May when AM-Canada were having our Annual Leadership Conference a similar miracle happened. Bill, the husband of Rev. Kimberley Morrison of Urban Abbey in Thunder Bay, shared with me of his severe back pain. When I prayed for him I received a call from the Holy Spirit to ask him to dip into his bath tub using very hot water for 20 minutes for seven days when he went back to Thunder Bay. And I told him, "If you do that, your pain will be gone on the eighth day."
      The next time I met him, he told me that he did not believe what I told him the first day he went back to Thunder BAy, just as Naaman did not believe what Elisha told him to do. But his back pain was more and more severe. So, on the second day he said to himself, "Well, what's the big deal to try what Bishop Silas asked me to do." Then he really dipped into his bath tub with very hot water for 20 minutes for seven days. You know what? On the eighty day, his severe back pain was gone!
     God really doesn't work by rules! He can do anything using any kind of ways. Our problem is, do we allow God to do things in a way we do not believe? Are we going to do something exactly what God's servant ask us to do the next time it happens? Do you have that kind of faith that God can use anyone to bring us healing and freedom?

    Dear Lord Jesus,
    Help us to learn from Naaman's story that we can have more faith in you to do those things we do not expect that would work but just do it so that we can experience your might power to heal, free and save. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

    

Reflect on these questions:

    1. Do you think you are willing to let God works in you through some people you do not expect?

2. How are you going to respond if similar things happen to you in a week's time?

    3. What have you got from Jesus today?

10,000 Reasons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDGE_lRI0E

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