God walks with us in our sanctification processes

In our last meditation based on the passage from Second Kings chapter 5, the encounter between Elisha and Naaman, we saw the terrible sin and mistake that Gehazi commits by going after Naaman and asking for money from him, believing that no one would notice. and in that way in a sense as spoiling this towering and elegant process that God wanted to carry out in Naaman's life, and the corruption that we see.

This is interesting too, I think for a little while, right? that there have always been imperfect people in the ways of the Lord. Many times we are offended because this happened, the other happened as if it were a great thing; This is part of human life, it is part of human nature. Always through the centuries the servants of God have made serious mistakes. There will always be imperfection in the Church of Jesus Christ, we cannot be scandalized and run away and deny the Gospel because this great servant of God or this person on whom we had set our sights did something or the other.

Our gaze must always be focused exclusively on Jesus Christ, He is the only one who will never disappoint us. Our Pastors, the leaders of our Congregation are men and women of flesh and blood like any other, and we cannot let ourselves be carried away by those things, we cannot put our faith in them. They are useful, of great blessing but they are human beings prone to fall, to sin, and to offend, and to err like any other human being, and that is what Gehazi represents. Human imperfection amid the perfection and power of God.

But we see something here too, that going back a bit, when Naaman experiences this great miracle of God he says to Elisha: look, I just want to confess something to you. I am the right hand of my king and many times the king wants me to accompany him to the temple of his god, and I know that he is not the true God, and now from now on I will not serve another God other than to the God of Israel, but sometimes he asks me to accompany him to the Church of this false god, and he leans on my arm. And when the king bows to the false god I too have to bow to physically support my lord, and in a sense I would be bowing as well, contradicting this promise that I have made. But it is not that I am doing it from the heart but that physically my position forces me to do this.

Elisha's response is interesting. Instead of perhaps a blunt no, like saying: no, now you only serve God and you can't do anything that contradicts the confession you have made, Eliseo pastorally, very generously and understandingly tells him: okay, don't worry. God knows what your situation is and there is no sin in it.

I have always seen that beautiful scene where God's mercy extends to this man who is in a difficult professional situation to extend grace. I believe that many times in pastoral treatment, Pastors and counselors find very rare and difficult situations, where we can choose to give people a legalistic and rigid response, and Pharisaic or we can express God's mercy as for example in the case of Jesus with the Samaritan woman, or with the adulterous woman, or with Plunder the publican, we see the mercy with which the Lord treats this person. Or with Peter when he denied it, yet we see the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is not that we are talking about false liberalism or debauchery but that we always have to, in pastoral treatment, live in that tension between rigidity and mercy, between understanding what God wants from us but also many times people take time to be able to go purifying and organizing their life, so that they can take it where God wants to take them.

Sometimes people come to our Church who are involved in difficult situations, then God begins to make a deal in their lives and it is going to cost them to change their lifestyle. It is going to cost them money, it is going to cost them perhaps the comfortable way they are used to living, perhaps they are going to have to break up with someone they love. And many times the servants of God do not have the kindness, the grace, the mercy, the compassion, the patience, the pastoral heart to accompany these people through the processes they have to live.

I imagine that it took Naaman a long time to find a way of living that was totally upright before God and perhaps also retreat little by little from his position as general of Syria, and the interesting thing is that God through the prophet Elisha He says: No, I am willing to accompany you on that journey of sanctification and improvement. As long as you are fighting this do not worry, I will not condemn you and I will walk with you. God walks with us in our processes of sanctification and of bringing the different aspects of our life to God's order.

There must be in us a desire and a determination to do it, and we have to immediately submit our life because it costs us, when we live out of adjustment with what God wants in our life there will always be some kind of consequence. But we have to know that God is merciful, God is faithful, and God has compassion on us.

And there is a beautiful passage in Psalm 34, the last one that says: "Those who trust in Him will not be condemned." God will not condemn us if our hearts are in the right place. If we want to please the Lord, if there is a desire to serve Him, if there is sadness in our hearts because we know that we are not totally aligned with what God wants from our lives but we are doing everything possible to bring our life to that point.

And pastoral hearts are needed, people are needed with a heart of counseling, of understanding the Word, of understanding what the sanctification process is like and how the Holy Spirit himself deals with us to lead us towards what God wants to take us, and that things take time. Those pastoral churches, those pastoral hearts are the ones that are going to make the difference.

In this world of the XXI century with so many ties and so many deforming experiences that people bring to the Church, churches that are Pharisaic, rigid, legalistic, mechanical in their way of seeing sanctification are not going to be able to reach this culture. Churches are needed that are committed to the holiness of God but understand how the processes of sanctification occur, as we see here with Eliseo who tells him: go in peace, God will teach you what you have to do. Do not agonize more than necessary because God has mercy on you. Thank God for that because if not, where would we be? if it weren't for God's mercy, grace and patience.

Well, we are grateful to the Lord for this series of messages based on the meeting between Elisha and Naaman, and I hope it has been a blessing for your life as well. Thank you for sharing this time with me, your friend and servant of the Lord, Roberto Miranda, I say goodbye to you. Until next time.