The tragedy of Gehazi was that he
never recognized he was first a leper in heart. He assumed that because his
environment was right, he was right. Elisha was always before him, the prophetic
school always around him and the service of the Lord always by his side. With
such surroundings who could possibly be ungodly? The truth is, with such
surroundings it is easier to be self-deceived! Self-deception always works on
the principle that God is as fuzzy-eyed as people are; we think that because
they do not see, He does not see. However, Gehazi reminds us that God sees all
too well, and sooner or later people will see what He has been seeing all
along.
What is God telling me here? I must
root out inward leprosy lest God make it painfully public. He will help me to
do it, what I voluntarily expose to Him, He will never expose to the world (1
John 1:9).
One way to do great things for Christ
is to do little things for others.
You rob yourself of being you when you
try to do what others are meant to do. Be yourself, know your limitations.
The first step down for any church is
taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God (A. W. Tozer).
The penalty for rejecting truth is
accepting lies (Warren Wiesbe).
THE CROSS OF CHRIST
The lamb of God was crucified. And penalty for sin was paid; God’s
holiness was satisfied. When all our sins on Christ was laid, the cross of
Christ reveals God’s love at its worst (Our Daily Bread, August 16,
1992).
FROM SORROW TO SERVICE (2 CORINTHIANS 1)
Josephine Butler, a noted British social worker, proved in a dramatic
manner that a way to relieve one’s own burden of sorrow is to shoulder that of
someone else. On coming home one day, her little daughter ran out of an
upstairs room to greet her. She leaned over the balustrade to see her mother,
but lost her balance, crashed to the ground, and died. The mother was
broken-hearted, but the God of all comfort did not fail her in her distress.
An old Quaker lady came to comfort her
and said, “I have spent most of my life looking after girls from the streets. I
am old now and I can no longer handle the work looking after the home where
forty of them live. Come and take my job and you will forget your sorrow.”
Josephine took over the care of the home and found great fulfillment in doing
so. While, of course, she never really forgot her sorrow, by taking on her
shoulders the troubles and cares of others, she discovered a remedy for her own
loss (J. Oswald Sanders, Facing Loneliness).
I AM GUILTY
Once when Prussian King Fredrick the Great visited Potsdam Prison,
every convict he spoke to claimed to be innocent. Finally, he came across one
man under sentence of death for stealing who simply said, “Your Majesty, I am
guilty and richly deserving of punishment.”
Fredrick turned to the prison governor
and said, ‘Free this rascal and get him out of our prison, before he corrupts
all the noble innocent people in here.’
From God’s point of view, religious
people can be like that prison community. Religious beliefs, rituals, and
association often give people a way of denying their shame, guilt, and need of
a Savior. Instead of encouraging people to declare their inability to save
themselves, religion gives people a front and cover for their unresolved
problems (Anonymous).
A young and an uncompromising minister
became a pastor of a local church that had stopped growing. He began to teach
the people the Word of God, and preached fiery messages. Soon the church
started growing. There were two rich brothers in the church who lived ungodly
lives. They thought because of their riches they could buy the young pastor.
The pastor ignored them and kept on preaching the truth from God’s Word. One of
the brothers became ill and died. The church needed money to expand their
buildings. The other rich brother came to the pastor with an offer of 1 Million
dollars with one condition. He told the pastor I want you to do the funeral of
my brother. In his eulogy, if you would just say my brother was a saint, here
is a check for 1 Million dollars. The pastor agreed, took the check and
deposited it at the bank. When the time for the funeral sermon came, the pastor
said to the audience, we have all gathered here to pay our last respect to Mr.
So, so, and so. You all know how he lived. He was a crook, a fraud, a
hypocrite, immoral, and dishonest. He lived like the devil. But when you we
compare the deceased to his brother who is seated with us, he was a saint. The
brother was in a state of shock. The young pastor kept his word and kept the
money as well.
