healing word

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.”

2 Kings 5:8

The story of the life of Elisha the prophet repeatedly teaches about the impact of the Word of God through His prophets. In the story of Naaman, we find that this healing Word of God has reached the Gentile nation of Syria. Naaman was a Syrian official with a debilitating disease. His leprosy was incurable and he had heard from a reliable source that in Israel there was a prophet of God who was known for bringing God’s healing.

So Naaman, powerful military commander of all the Syrian army, a man who had previously warred and raided Israel, enters Israel and delivers a letter from the Syrian king directly to Israel’s king demanding that Naaman be cured of his disease. This caused no small amount of concern for Israel’s king, who felt this all was a pretense for a coming invasion.

But Elisha knew that God could work in this situation to bring about not only deliverance to Israel, but also the healing of Naaman. He confidently trusts that Naaman would continue to learn the value of the powerful Word of God through His prophet. 

Elisha’s confidence is not in himself. It is in God. Elisha never even speaks face to face with Naaman, but instead sends instructions to him to bathe in the Jordan seven times for his healing. After some convincing from his staff, a reluctant Naaman obeys the Word of the Lord and is miraculously made whole.

Similarly, we are healed only by trusting in what God has revealed and not by our own efforts. Had Naaman chosen to bathe in Syria in defiance, he would have remained a leper. But he came to trust the Word of God. And so we must trust in the gospel, that Jesus died for us who were sinners and could do nothing to save ourselves. This humbles us to trust in God’s revealed Word. Only then can we find healing and new life.

Pray first!

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Philippians 4:6

Prayer is often the most overlooked of spiritual fortifiers. I may offer prayer as a last resort or an afterthought in a time of struggle. I’ll usually try to do so much to “fix” what I perceive as a problem that I wind up making the situation worse. I’m quick to foul it up and then I am slow to humble myself in prayer. O God, forgive me! I need this reminder today: Pray first, figure it out later!

Anxiety is meant to be a prayer driver. It is a dashboard light telling us to pull over and pay attention to prayer. And prayer that offers all of life to God in request will keep that anxiety from driving us into all kinds of self-created trouble! Prayer that is pleading and thankful, surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus, will free us from our fears.

This bizarre and totally outrageous year of 2020 has led me to pray. And I have prayed not only for my own requests, but for others at a distance deficit like never before. But I still haven’t done it quite like this passage states it. And why now, over eight months into this pandemic disruption do I finally realize that this cultural anxiety is a fervent call to serious and heartfelt prayer? I mean I’ve prayed a lot. But I don’t think I’ve kept the wisdom of the prayer we are commanded to practice here in mind. So I pray...

Lord Jesus,

I thank You that You hear me and answer prayer. I want to know Your peace in these anxious times. And so I ask You to guide me, my home, all whom I love, and my church safely through this perilous pandemic. Guide us safely through this awful political turmoil. Deliver us from attempted tyranny and transition us peacefully. May the plans of evil people come to utter frustration! Guide those who care now for our sick and our elderly. Spare us from the worst this pandemic could bring! Oh that fast relief from this virus could graciously arrive by Your providence! And most of all, as only You can by Your mercies, open this entire world to the healing gospel of Jesus Christ, I pray! And embolden Your church to hold out this hope to an anxious world.

Amen

self-justifying fail

And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”

Luke 16:15

I try to talk up

     my good acts

Yet I am still a sinner

     bound to that fact.

Without Jesus to justify me

     I’m just a failure.

I want to look holy

     so I’ll try to put on a show

But I’m really fooling no one

     because God already knows

Without Jesus to justify me

     I’m just a failure.

So I fall on God’s grace

     I call out to my Lord

I trust in Jesus to save me

     and I believe His Word.

Because Jesus justifies me

     I can be holy.

And I reject all efforts

     of boasting in what I do

I look up to One much better:

     “Jesus... I trust in You!”

Jesus justifies me.

That is what I need.

where idols thrive

Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the LORD will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols.

Ezekiel 14:4-5

God wants to have the complete attention of our hearts. That is were we truly worship. That is where we hold to what we consider most dear. That is where our passions and deepest desires reside and flow out to control our actions. The heart is the center from which all of our attitudes, thoughts, words, and actions pulse out in all of life. And what resides in our hearts will affect all of how we will live.

Israel’s continuous struggle with idolatry was an individual heart defect spread across an entire culture. God’s diagnosis was that idolatry had infected the hearts of all the people of Israel. They had enshrined their idols in their hearts. And yet they blatantly went through the motions with God by inquiring of His prophet and pretending to care about what God said. But this heart idolatry created an impassible barrier to relationship with and obedience to God.

Heart idols fool us. We can pretend we aren’t worshiping falsely. I mean after all, you will find me in God’s house at all the right times! But inwardly our idols have our full attention. And until we tear down those secret shrines we will not truly know God’s blessing. We must repent of misplaced worship, tear down our heart idols, and worship God from that internal place of passion and commitment!

Lord,

My idols deceive me. Confront them and show me which ones I am worshipping. Help me to topple them so that You alone, in the glory of Your cross and resurrection, are my true worship. And lead me, Jesus, confidently forward in worship of You. I desire no more stumbling. I want Your grace to lead me in worship of only You!

Amen

thankfulness during uncertainty

We give thanks to you, O God;

we give thanks, for your name is near.

We recount your wondrous deeds.

Psalm 75:1

2020 gives us the chance to know a Thanksgiving holiday like none other in recent memory. The celebration here at the Burch home will be more subdued and sadly the first now of many not to include any members of the generation before mine. They are all gone from our lives now. And so my perspective has changed and I must take a new role to the next generation in my own home.

Our kids are adults and will be “coming home” to us for dinner for the first time as well. After decades of being the ones who “came home” or had dinner with family who lived day to day with us, this feels quite different. And in keeping with all the pandemic strangeness, our family feels it is best to keep Thanksgiving small. And with all the political puzzling and chaos, it feels like a weird time for us to be thankful. But I am seriously considering reading Psalm 75:1-7 around our table before we offer up our thanks. Seriously... it seems to speak to these divisive and uncertain times so well! 2020 stands a chance of being a landmark holiday year.

There are two clues as to how to be thankful in unsettled times right here in the very first verse of Psalm 75. CLUE 1: God is still near. Asaph wrote this psalm in a time when Israel was threatened by boastful, self-centered leaders and enemies (see Psalm 75:4-6 for this insight). Yet God was near and it is He Who steadies us in tottering times (Psalm 75:3). His justice is perfect when injustice seems rampant (Psalm 75:2). CLUE 2: God’s past deeds provide perspective. When the present feel uncertain, trust God, and remember what He has already done! A God-led past steadies our view of an uncertain present and gives assurance for a God-directed future.

Lord Jesus,

You are near. You will never leave us or forsake us. Thank You that You are God Who came near! We are never alone. You have not left us as orphans but forever made a way for us to be in You through Your cross. And You are in control. Your victory over death, Your teaching that gives us life, and Your Holy Spirit in Your Church encourage us in these uncertain days to trust only You!

Amen

a cloak is cast

So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him.

1 Kings 19:19

When Elijah felt overwhelmed by the pressures of ministry, God called him to develop a leader. The prophet was called to find an apprentice to mentor, to begin training for leadership another person to what he did, And Elijah quickly obeyed the specific call of God to anoint Elisha with this task of a new prophetic ministry.

There are some interesting elements to Elisha’s call. He was a farmboy, but not just any old farmboy. His family was evidently wealthy and farmed a large field. There were twelve yoke of oxen (that’s at least 24 heavy livestock) all pulling plows that day. This means that Elisha was out working with a large group of people, perhaps all the men of his town. This was a very public call that Elijah made of Elisha.

Elisha’s response to this call was equally public. He stopped the plow, sacrificed his yoke of oxen to the Lord, burning their wooden yoke to boil their flesh, in answer to the call. Then he fed the crowd and probably the entire town of Abelmeholah as he officially said goodbye to farming and entered into obeying the call of God to be a prophet under Elijah’s care and training.

Elijah’s strange way of making this call is unique. He threw his cloak over Elisha and walked on. Elijah’s cloak would be an identifying image of his ministry (see 1 Kings 19:3; 2 Kings 2:8, 13-14). It became symbolic of the Lord’s power and presence with him, and to entrust that cloak to Elisha somehow showed how God’s presence and power would pass to him as well.

There is something powerful in the investment of mentoring leaders. And it is part of my own call. The gospel is propelled forward in this fashion from generation to generation. Jesus invested in discipleship and in about three years time left all that would become His church into the hands of His chosen twelve. And I am called as a Christian and as a pastor to be sure to do the same. I need to always be on the lookout for those on whom God calls me to cast my cloak.

consecrated by blood and oil

Then Moses took some of the anointing oil and of the blood that was on the altar and sprinkled it on Aaron and his garments, and also on his sons and his sons' garments. So he consecrated Aaron and his garments, and his sons and his sons' garments with him.

Leviticus 8:30

The first priests were consecrated (made holy and pleasing to the Lord’s service) by the blood of a sacrifice and with anointing of oil. This made them holy and set apart to the service of offering sacrifices in the tabernacle in the wilderness. God controlled the process. Moses just obeyed the command that God laid out. The result was that a holy God could be worshiped in a holy place, through a holy way, by a consecrated people.

These priests were cleansed and consecrated by obedience to the means that God had ordained. The nation could come to God, find atonement through sacrifice, and worship in holiness because of the blood and the oil.

And today, because of the final sacrifice, the completed work of Jesus gives me freedom from sin’s curse and defilement. The blood of Jesus has consecrated every believer. And the Holy Spirit, like anointing oil, has indwelt each believer. We are a holy, consecrated people with full access to God, consecrated to His service. We are a people, called to be holy for the Lord.