Seven

“So [Naaman] went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of [Elisha] the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.” ( 2 Kings 5:14)

The 1995 thriller Seven starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt is a police drama about two cops tracking a serial killer who is using the seven deadly sins as his mode of operation. For many of us, seven is a lucky number. In the Bible, seven is the number of perfection as God created the world and man in six days and He rested on the seventh because it was good. The city of Jericho was taken on the seventh march around the city on the seventh day.

In the Book of Second Kings, Naaman, the powerful commander of Syria’s army, was healed of leprosy when he dipped seven times in the Jordan river. When Naaman left Elisha’s house he was angry because he had been told to dip in the dirty Jordan river in order to receive his healing instead of the rivers of Damascus. But Naaman’s servant told him, “If the prophet had told you to do something great, you’d have done it in a heartbeat. You came prepared to empty your checkbook, to mortgage the palace, to bet the ranch, to do whatever it takes. Now all you have to do is dip seven times in the Jordan, wash and be clean as the prophet said. Wouldn’t it be worth it to receive your healing and come up clean?”

The God who healed Naaman is asking us the same question today, as it is worth being humble to wash ourselves of sin and come up clean, healed, restored and made whole.

Like Naaman, we need to swallow our Supersized egos to confess our sins, acknowledge our shortcomings, get right with God, and ask Him for help. It’ll be worth rushing the disapproval of those who don’t really matter because they’re not part of God’s plan for us anyway. After all, we are called to be God pleasers, not people pleasers. And all the suffering we endure is well worth the eternal and exceeding weight of glory as we rule and reign with Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:12).

We must be careful to not let our reputation get in the way of our healing and restoration. The devil has been working 2Fast 2Furious to entice us to the wrong rivers, but we need to be where God wants us to be as we obey His Word. All we need is the kind of faith that involves looking foolish for a while, faith that keeps us dependent on God when it looks like everybody else is doing better than us.

Subscribe/Unsubscribe: eddyn@earthlink.net
Prayer/Praise/Giving: eddyn@earthlink.net

Email: eddyn@earthlink.net

Home