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No Heart Change
"As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!” 2 Kings 5:7, NIV
This king was the ruler of a nation…a covenant nation before God. It would be natural to assume that he was a Godly man, but that was not the case. Sure he was good at giving lip service to the Lord God; however, his heart was not there - he had no heart change before God.
It is sad in own day that many church leaders are like this king. They know the words to say, they been through all the training, but there has been no heart change. You can see this in the confusion in the church on topics like abortion, sexual perversion, and even the inspiration of the Scripture. Many Church leaders cannot sound a clear trumpet call because they have never had a genuine conversion experience themselves. At best it is just a job, a position, an income. At worst, they are consciously trying to undermine the faith of true believers.
With no heart change, you can imagine the panic the king was in when Naaman showed up with a letter from a rival nation requesting him to cure Naaman. This is an impossible request! It's totally unreasonable! Who can cure leprosy? It must be just an excuse to make war. Even through he was the ruler of the covenant nation - and knew the works of God in the past - it never occurred to him that this could be a genuine asking for help. Of course, the king of Aram had no knowledge of the true God. To him it only seemed natural that the power of a god would be centred around the king.
Even as genuine believers we can fall into this trap. An impossible situation arises in our life or is presented to us by someone else. We panic. We can't handle it! We know we can't handle it. What are we to do?
The truth is, we don't have to handle it. We can take it to God in prayer. Of course, if we have not spent time developing relationship with Jesus and learning His ways, if we haven't been lovers of Jesus, then, even as genuine believers, we are going to face the fear and the panic. Remember, when the boat with Jesus was caught in the storm [Matt. 8:23-27]? The disciples, who were genuine believers, were in a panic, but Jesus was sleeping calmly. Jesus had total confidence in the Father, the disciples were still moved by what they saw in the natural. In truth, we are all somewhere between the two, but we should be developing relationship and moving close to where Jesus was.
Of course, when I say we don't have to handle the situation I do not mean we can ignore it. Stuff happens. Things have to be dealt with. We take it to Jesus in prayer and then begin taking the small steps that we know how to take realizing that He is in control of the outcome. Our responsibility is to obey, His responsibility is to work it out for good.
On a side note: Many scientists are like this king. Their preconceived ideas of evolution do not allow them to even consider creation explanations as a possibility in their research and theory development.
For more information about Glenn Davis, see our About Glenn page or visit Glenn Davis Books.
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