Elisha's reward

We see the radical change in Naaman's character after receiving his miracle and the way he now then treats the prophet Elisha with the utmost respect and asks him to accept a gift, no longer a payment for his blessing but a gift. , and the interesting thing is that Elisha could very well have accepted it because it was legitimate in a sense.

The Bible says that the ox that threshes is not put on a painter and Christians should support God's servants because they serve in his ministry, and they have families, and financial responsibilities, and I do not believe that God wants God's children live in misery either. We see in Scripture that He wants to support His servants and God provided, for example, for the priests, a way to support themselves; not like the way the other Israelites lived who could receive a portion of land, an inheritance to have their private properties, but God provided other ways of how the servants of God were to be sustained in their life.

And it is interesting that in the Bible it says that the Lord says: "I am your inheritance" He tells the priests and the Levites. There is a lot of fabric to cut because I believe that today we have gone to the other extreme, where I remember that in other times in my childhood, I saw other poor Pastors, suffering bad times, having a difficult time and indolent Congregations that did not contribute as God commands, their tithes, their offerings and they did not provide for the care of the Lord's servant.

And since in this time we have gone to the other extreme, where we see that today many Pastors believe that they have the right to a lifestyle like movie stars, and deriving exorbitant salaries that are not even salaries, rather they use the money from great churches and great ministries as they please, without any kind of response or being responsible, to a board of directors or having any kind of care in how they treat money, and we feel like no, the servants of God must live in a very luxurious and very abundant way. We are not going to put it that way but that is what is happening many times.

And I'm interested, right? because sometimes we choose the passages that suit us to support the things that we want to see interpreted. In this case looking at this servant of God, powerfully used by the Lord who could have lived in a luxurious way and that nobody could have really criticized him because, how good what he was doing and was sacrificing himself for the Lord, but he He totally refuses to receive a single penny from Naaman because he understands that his life is used by the Lord, and that what he is doing cannot be tainted with any semblance of self-interest.

The influence and power that Elisha has over the life of Naaman and over what God wants to do about the life of this man depends in large part on Elisha always maintaining this posture of dignity, of separation, of total integrity, of being a sacred priest of God who does not move in the way men move.

You see that here a contrast is being established between how the Kingdom of God moves and how the Kingdom of the world moves. So it is important that Elisha always maintain this priestly royalty and not take anything from this man as it should be for a person who belongs to the Kingdom of Heaven, a very powerful Kingdom and different from the kingdom of the world. So I think that's why Elisha rejects the financial reward.

And that is why we see that these great men of God, Elijah, Elisha, we do not see them living ostentatiously but we see them consecrated to the Lord and his glory, and their reward comes rather from being used by God. Frankly, I would give all the millions in the world to be used in such a glorious way as Elisha was used, and I think that's how we have to be in our life too.

I believe that God does not do more transformative things in great nations where we have great movements of God, but that the impact of the Gospel in those nations is not really seen. There are great moves of the Holy Spirit but the same corruption continues, the same crime, the same violence, the same national and social deterioration and in part it is I believe because the devil has the right to interfere, and to influence, and we see all these scandals that They happen continuously, and these collapses of so many ministries because their foundation is not a biblical, spiritual, eternal, otherworldly foundation and we have contaminated ourselves with the values of the world, and then in reality the devil has the right to come in and do what he wants. feel like it.

How different Eliseo's attitude in this case. I will not receive anything from you and instead of pleasing Naaman he remains firm in his position because here it is a power struggle what there was, the power of the world and the Power of God, and it was necessary for Elisha to show that he was a member of that higher Realm that moves according to different values.

I think of the apostle Paul in the same way, how Paul was, he supported himself from his own work and says that his glory was not to let himself be subjected, although he very well could have done it and no one would ever have been able to criticize him in that, but Paul says: no, I am not going to receive a penny from you, I prefer to earn my money on my own account and that is what God has spoken to my life.

Not everyone has to be like this. As I say, a Pastor, myself, I receive my sustenance from my Church but we have to be very careful how we handle God's money, the money of God's people who give it for purposes of the Kingdom of God, we should not never fall into any type of corruption, even, says the apostle Paul, not even do something that has the resemblance of corruption or misuse of the goods of the Kingdom of God, and that is the integrity, I would say, that we have to continually strive to show before the world, before our Congregations and before the people of God in general.

Integrity in everything possible, in the use of money, in power, our moral behavior, all these things, because that is the first testimony that we can give to the world. When the world sees men like Elisha it is forced to think twice before criticizing them.

God allow each one of us in our own environment of life, we can always handle ourselves with that disinterest and generosity, and that lack of attachment to material things with which Eliseo behaves. I know that Naaman is a great testimony, although also perhaps a little a little strange, and at first perhaps it caused him a little discomfort but, that was what God wanted, to give him a moral and spiritual lesson in all dimensions. God bless you and until our next meditation.