26.12.2018
2 Ki 7:9 But then they told each other, “We’re not doing the right thing. This is a day of good news, but if we keep quiet until morning, we’re sure to be punished! So let’s leave and go tell the king’s household!”
These are the words uttered by 4 lepers. They were sitting at the entrance of city gate waiting to die because of the famine prevalent in the city. Any good news for Samaria at that time would have been that of food supply, but for the lepers, healing.
As prophet Elisha predicted, in one single day famine came to an end in Samaria. Plenty of food was supplied at the entrance gate of the city. The way it happened & the instruments the Lord used, very interesting. (Ref 2 Ki 7)
Lepers were outcasts. Through them the Lord sends the good news. God’s ways are never familiar!
These lepers said among themselves,
2 Ki 7:3,4 “Why are we sitting here waiting to die? ….. there’s famine in the city. ….we’ll die, too. So let’s go over to the Arameans! If they spare our lives, we’ll live, and if they kill us…we’re dying anyway!”. They took the risk.
The Lord already had chased the Arameans! The same moment His hand worked among the lepers to go & see the abundance of fresh food, (before it perished). They ate what they could, hid what they could, & still could not sit quiet. They had pity on their people, the very people who had rejected them, cut off all the associations with them & left them as legal outcasts of the society.
They forgot the moments their family members, relatives & society altogether came together for passing the order to ostracize them!
Anybody who is blessed by God can enjoy the blessings in their individual life, & family. But don’t forget you have a duty towards the society.
The lepers realized it. The materials entrusted with them (food) were perishable & were of instant distribution. They took a decision to spread the good news before morning ( less than 12 hours).
A child of God has no right to keep the good news with him/her more than a day in a nation (India) where 69000 people are dying without hearing the “Good News” of salvation!
I remember a sister (a Colonel) who accepted the Lord as her Saviour, telling me,
“Sister, I feel such joy that I like to lock myself up in my house for 3 days and enjoy this bliss in full. By associating with people, I may lose it.”
For lepers, it took only few hours to come out of themselves. They forgot their status, (beggars) their habitation (city gate) & plunged into duty – taking the good news to the king.
Another thing noteworthy- They did not wait for their healing. Still being a leper, they carried the good news.
Many of us are imprisoned in our thoughts & are deceived.
“I myself am still a leper (Not blessed, not healed, lack these blessings).
How can I be a messenger of the Lord ? If somebody asks of my infirmity, what will I say? Let me first get healed, receive a miracle. Then my message with testimony will be powerful!”
Beware of this deception! Cast it out instantly if you don’t want to be found guilty!
I have high appreciation for the poor lepers who somehow managed to enter into the palace and successfully accomplish the duty entrusted to them!.
Lepers would not have heard prophet Elisha’s prophecy for the land! But God used them as instruments to fulfill it.
Dear soldier of God, you might be in leprosy today! Ostracized legally, socially, morally, mentally from your own family members, child(ren), wife, husband, parents, own people, own caste, etc….
Jesus faced the same situation.
Jn 1:11 “He came to his own, and those who were his own didn’t receive him.”
Still God has entrusted the “Good News for the whole world” with you!
Before getting an entry into the palace, at how many gates the lepers would have been blocked! How many hindrances they would have faced?
But no security of the king could stand in their way to the palace! They became more powerful than all the high security of the king. Because they had the “Good News” with them.
Receive the “Good News” everyday from your loving Father directly by spending time with Him!
It will make you powerful to overcome all your negatives.
God did not heal the lepers before making them messengers. They were lepers before & after! Bible says nothing about their healing!
The blessing you expect from the Lord may not come the way you expect! It might be much more than that!
Would the lepers ever have dreamt of becoming the best food suppliers of a famine stricken country? The best they could have expected & prayed for, would’ve been their physical healing!
Lord in His benevolence, raised their status! What they did for their nation, got imprinted in the “Word of God” & they were added among the saints of the Bible, without getting healed.
Sr. Angelica
