With my heart pounding and reluctance in my fingertips, I turned back to 2 Kings 5:1-14. I read the story of God healing a prideful foreigner. The reluctance was because I knew God wanted to change my heart. There are certain things I just want to ignore and tuck away in hidden places. Nothing is hidden from the Lord and the more I seek Him, the more He drags out those things I tuck away. There was a yucky place in my heart that did not want to know about this foreigner and I certainly did not want to write about Him. Lord, please forgive me.
I just wanted to study the life of our Savior this morning. I picked up where I left off and began reading in Luke 4:14. While reading about Jesus being rejected in Nazareth the Lord abruptly stopped me at verses 25-27 and rerouted my study.
“And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, but the only one healed was Naaman, a Syrian.””
Luke 4:27 NLT
Needless to say, I spent the rest of the morning reading about a Syrian commander, a forgeigner, who did not know the one true God. His story was many years before Jesus spoke the words of Luke 4:27 but Jesus wanted us to recall this story.
I encourage you to read 2 Kings 5:1-14.
Why would God heal a prideful foreigner who did not believe in Him? There are probably many reasons why God healed him. But, I spent most of the morning dwelling on this one. Through a young slave girl who knew God (there is much to learn from this fearless one), Naaman, all his company and even Israel (God’s people) would know there is one true God. God healed Naaman so all around him might know Him!
Here’s Naaman words,
“Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present from your servant.””
2 Kings 5:15 ESV
God wants all to know Him. He has a giant heart for all of us, even foreigners.
This issue of opening our hearts to foreigners scares me. Don’t throw stones, I am just trying to be honest. I wrestle with this. I want to ignore it and tuck it away. But, I take comfort in knowing that this does not scare Jesus. There are many accounts of Jesus opening his arms to foreigners. I desire to live a fearless life trusting completely in our Lord God Almighty. This is my prayer. This is all I know how to do today.
I don’t know the answers to our immigration problems today. I don’t even know where I stand on all that. The Lord has appointed President Trump and other leaders to do their best for all people.
What I know I can do is,
seek the Lord’s guidance through His Word,
pray for missionaries and the people they are trying to reach, and the leaders of our country,
and give to support those loving foreigners in Jesus’ name.
“Whatever we do we must not treat the Great Commission like it’s the great suggestion.” ~Charles R. Swindoll
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