Tues.’s Devo - The Miracles of Elisha

Read: 2 Kings 4:18-5:27; Acts 15:1-35; Psalm141:1-10; Proverbs 17:23
The son of the woman from Shunem grew old enough to work with his dad in the field. One day his head hurt so bad he had to be carried in from the field. By noon he had died. The mother rode a donkey to where Elisha lived. She blamed him for his death and told him she wasn’t leaving without him. Elisha had sent Gehazi to put his staff on the child’s head but he didn’t wake up. Elisha had to lay on top of him eyeball to eyeball, mouth to mouth and hand to hand. Finally the child became warm and sneezed seven times and woke up. His mother was overwhelmed with gratitude.
There was a famine in the land and the group of prophets were gathering plants and vegetables for a pot of stew. Someone accidentally brought a plant that was poisonous. They cried out to Elisha and he brought some flour and put it in the stew. It was now good to eat.
One day during the famine, a man from Baal-shalishah which means “Lord of the third part” came and brought them a sack of grain and 20 loaves of barley bread made from his first fruits to give to the prophets. There was no way it would feed all 500 of the prophets but Elisha told his servant to give it to them and that there would be left overs. He did and there was. (Jesus fed 5,000 with 5 loaves and two fish!) God was indeed the Lord of the third part which was his part from Heaven.
Naaman was the commander of the army of Aram. The king greatly revered Naaman, but Naaman had leprosy. Naaman’s wife had a young servant girl who had been captured from Israel. She told her mistress that if Naaman lived in Israel, the prophet would heal him. When the wife told Naaman, he sent money and gifts to the king asking him to heal his leprosy. The king of Israel read the letter and thought that Aram was picking a fight with him. Elisha heard about it and told the king to send the man to him, so he did. When Naaman came to Elisha’s house, he didn’t even come out to meet him. He sent his servant to tell him to wash in the Jordan river seven times.
Naaman was insulted that Elisha didn’t come out to meet him and that he would send him to a muddy river to bathe in seven times. He was about to leave mad when his own servant convinced him to try. He did and came out clean as a baby. He was so elated, he went back to Elisha and this time Elisha met him. He offered him silver, gold and clothing but Elisha refused it. Naaman vowed he would never bow to the gods of his land again but only serve the God of Israel.
He and his men left very changed on the outside and the inside, but Gehazi was filled with greed. He ran after them and concocted a story to get some of his gold and clothes. He then hid it and went back to Elisha’s. Elisha asked him where he had been and he lied and said, nowhere. Elisha called him out on it and told him that this was not the time to receive gold and clothing. Since he did and lied about it the leprosy that left Naaman would remain on Gehazi and his family forever. He walked out covered with leprosy.
In Acts, Paul and Barnabas were back at Antioch. A group from Judea arrived and began teaching the converts that they must be circumcised to be saved. Paul and Barnabas argued with them about this so the delegates sent them to Jerusalem to talk to the leaders there and get their opinion. There was a great division about it there also. As the elders met to discuss the hot topic, Peter stood up and spoke about the grace of God. James confirmed it with scripture from the Old Testament. They decided that instead of laying heavy burdens on them they should just keep it simple. They came up with sins the Gentiles should repent of. Since most of them came from idolatry, the teaching was about abstaining from their old way of worship of gods to true worship of the only God. They were to abstain from eating food offered to idols and drinking blood or meat of strangled animals and to abstain from sexual immorality. They brought this message back to Antioch where the people rejoiced at the encouraging words.
Lord, help us to not be turned away by the glitter of worldly things to disobey your truth.