SCRIPTURE: 2 Kings 7
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
Then they said to each other, “We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.” [2 Kings 7:9]
The lepers risk death to get food from the enemy camp.
As outcasts, they are already as good as dead – they are unclean.
Yet they become the agents of God’s good news.
They announce the impossible, that God has defeated the enemy and their abundant supplies are free for the taking.
This news is too good to hoard for oneself, it demands to be shared.
And so the lepers become evangelists – messengers of good news!
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” [ Luke 4:18-19]
The Spirit anointed Jesus to share the good news of God’s miraculous intervention – release for the oppressed, the day of His favour.
The floodgates have opened, and spiritual blessing has poured out.
We are those besieged by sin, desperate and dying.
Jesus is like the lepers, the outcast that no one believes, yet the true messenger of God’s good news.
Now we are those lepers, those outcasts who have personally experienced God’s good news.
We are now feeling the same, this is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves.
How can we keep the best news about Jesus to ourselves?
Our concern is not whether people believe us – many won’t.
But our concern is to let people know.
The Spirit of the Lord is on us, compelling us to witness to the good news of Jesus from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
What will I do, what will we do?
PRAYER:
Lord, help me to appreciate the good news for myself, but help me not to keep it to myself. Help me to share it with everyone I can!
The word of the Lord comes to pass. The Lord speaks and it was as in the beginning. The Lord foretells what will be and it will be. God’s word is the word of truth. That word needs to be shared.
The great commission tells us go to all nations . . . . In my latest reading, this command to go is not as found in the original. It was intended to read ‘on the way’ or ‘as you are going.’
Wherever we are , as we are going on the way we are to be bearers of the good news. Spread the gospel.
This little light of mine
I’m going to let it shine.
This little light of mine
I’m going to let it shine.-
Let it shine, let it shine
Let it shine.
– Hide it under a bushel, NO!
– Shine all over (your town)
– Don’t let Satan blow it out
– Let it shine ’til Jesus comes