We cannot import the patterns of the secular world into the Christian world

God wants us to be diligent in our lives. He wants to perform miracles for us but he also requires that we take initiative, that we believe God because God likes to move in the midst of our actions as he moved in Joshua's life, telling him: I have assured you of victory but look at what I command you to strive and be brave, and simply do not lie down to rest on your laurels but do your part in the miracle of victory and military liberation that I want to do for My people Israel.

And now we see another stage of this complex process where Naaman goes before the king of Israel, receives letters of authority and says that: "Naaman went out taking with him ten talents of silver and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of clothes. And he took also letters to the king of Israel that read: "When these letters come to you know from them that I am sending my servant Naaman to you to heal him of his leprosy."

I see in these words another element that God is assembling in this complex plot of Naaman and Elisha, and it is that an element of pride and arrogance is introduced here, and of authority according to the means that men use. Let us remember that Naaman is a man of authority, the general of a very powerful nation. A man who is used to the mechanisms of power and authority. I imagine that as a general when Naaman said something, it immediately had to be executed, he did not ask for favors, he did not ask for permission but he was a man who functioned according to force, power, authority. And then your mind is formed and structured in that way.

So Naaman does not realize that by seeking salvation from God he is now entering a zone of the Kingdom of God where things do not work as they do in the world. In the Kingdom of God we have to come with humility, with a broken heart because the Lord is close to the broken and humble soul, not to the haughty one. The Word says that God looks at the haughty from afar and draws near to the humble in heart.

But we see here that Naaman has not yet had that encounter with God, he has not had that encounter with the Kingdom of God and how things in the Kingdom of God work, which are often counter-cultural, counter-intuitive; they are very different and sometimes contradictory to how they work in the world.

So Naaman continues to operate according to his patterns of power, of authority, of military force. He goes to the king, gets a letter of authority from the king of Syria, a nation that has dominion and authority over Israel, and that the king of Israel feels oppressed by that nation that is militarily more powerful and apparently there was some kind of weight Syria had on Israel.

So Naaman does what any secular man would do, any man of power and it is: he goes to the king, he gets what he needs and he believes that he can bribe and pay the prophet to do the miracle that he needs. So he takes the money from his bank account, I imagine that today he would prepare a blank check, he wears a number of luxurious clothes to give to the prophet and it is like he thinks that, using his power, using his money he will to manipulate things so that he gets what he wants.

Again: it is a human, secular, rationalistic mentality that is working in Naaman's life at this moment but God wants to bring Naaman to a frontal encounter with the realities of His Kingdom, where only the humble acquire what God needs. The brokenhearted, the one who submits to Almighty God, the one who recognizes that human beings are like filthy rags and that we have to humbly approach the Lord.

Many times God is waiting for us to humble ourselves before Him. Many times the situations of life, the difficulties as I said before, the trials through which we are going are ways in which God is preparing us to break us, humble us, crucify us, open us to His deal. God cannot deal with us while we are too sure of ourselves, we move in our self-sufficiency while we believe that God has to do what we ask him because we are doing the right prayer, because we are tithing or we are serving him and sometimes what God wants us to break down before Him and become humble like children, and dependent on Him, and then become like an empty vessel on which He can pour His oil.

Sometimes we are so full of ourselves that God cannot do what He wants to do in us. Sometimes God has to purify us and go through the sugar mill as He did with Pedro, as He did with Elijah in his desert time, God wants to break us to show us a new dimension of His Glory.

Maybe God is speaking to someone today and saying: I want to use you, I want to glorify myself in you, I want to get you out of your difficult situation but first you need to humble yourself. You have to look around you: your behavior, your attitudes, your treatment of others and be like My Son, humble and simple of heart, be a true servant and servant, let Me deal with the rough areas of your life so that then I can do what I want to do in your life.

We cannot import the patterns from the secular world to the Christian world as so many people do and we believe that if we give to God, that if we serve God, that if we attend church, that if we speak in tongues, that if we move the right lever, God He's going to do His miracle because He has to, because it's like magic, right? And it is not like that.

God seeks the heart and God wanted to show Naaman: For more money you give, for more letters of authority that you have, it is not so that you are going to obtain the miracle that you need but that you have to break before Me, that is that God is preparing Naaman.

We see here again the mechanisms of man moving but also God is preparing a great surprise for His servant Naaman, who wants to make him a servant of Him and we see that later. The lesson of this moment is: humble yourself before God, break before Him and let Him pass you through the sugar mill, and hollow you out inside so that then you can receive and contain the glory that God wants to give you. God bless you and it is a privilege to share the Word of the Lord with you.