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I am using the YouVersion 49 Week Bible Challenge for these devotions. Today’s readings are Luke 4; Deuteronomy 8; Numbers 15; 2 Kings 5. In today’s readings, do you notice a promise to trust, a command to obey, a truth to embrace, a warning to heed, or an encouragement to rest in? What do you learn about God, about yourself, or about the world? Is there one verse or thought that stands out to you today? Talk to God about it.
2 Kings 5:1-14
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.
Have you not heard? I thought of this in regard to Jesus’ final answer to Satan, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Luke 4:12). The phrase is found in a number of places in the Bible, including Isaiah 40:28, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.” I think also of Jesus’ words, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it (Luke 11:28).
If only Naaman and Gehazi had listened to and kept Elisha’s word to heal his disease. If only they had been as believing as Naaman’s servants. They urge 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’?” The implication: if he said it, do it! What have you got to lose?
Hearing God’s word goes beyond not losing something. It’s not just a matter of a better outcome. Hearing God’s word and keeping it is a matter of life and death. Think of it. Adam and Eve didn’t hear and keep God’s world, and they plunged the world into sin and death. Naaman almost didn’t hear and keep God’s word through the prophet, and nearly was not healed of his leprosy. Gehazi didn’t listen to Elisha’s word about not accepting a gift from Naaman, and ended with the disease of which Naaman was healed. (You’ll have to read about that in the remainder of the account recorded in 2 Kings 5.)
Every time Jesus was tempted by Satan – including the time Satan misquoted or misapplied Scripture – he brought his life and decisions under the word of God. He had heard the word of God from childhood. He had kept it faithfully. In that he is our example. But he is even more: he is the Word of God incarnate. God in the flesh, and a living testimony to God’s faithfulness through the most dire of situations, conquering sin, Satan, and death: our Redeemer and Lord.
Have you heard?
- You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. – Deuteronomy 8:18
- I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD your God. – Numbers 15:41
David Bahn - Reflections 
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