Seeking more intimacy with the Holy Spirit

I remember in my first sermon about thirty-odd years ago I chose the Shunammite woman, one of my favorite characters in all of Scripture, because this woman is fascinating in terms of her character, her love for God, her miraculous life, and the spiritual truths that she embodies and illustrates.

So the passage in Second Kings in chapter 4 verse 8, this passage begins by telling us that: "One day, Elisha was passing through a town called Shunem, and there was an important woman there who insistently invited him to eat. And when he passed by that way he would come to her house to eat. "

You know that in a novel or in a work of literature the way one develops a character and presents his character is not so much by describing the temperament or character of the person but by illustrating his character through his actions, his words during a conversation. In this way the reader learns what the characteristics of the character are. It is not necessarily because the narrator is describing: he was like this or this way, or he did this or that, but the actions and words of the character speak for the character and describe him, they paint the reader the characteristics of the character, and here We begin to see the character and life, and the spiritual makeup of this woman.

The first thing we are told is that she was an important woman. That means that this woman was a woman of a certain lineage, a certain weight, a certain meaning in her city. She was not just any person, she was a person of substance, probably known in her community, possibly her social position was very solid and she was probably a woman of influence, respected in her community.

And another thing she tells us here is that she insistently invited Eliseo to come to her house and eat with them, with her and her husband, her family, because it seems that she lived in a house that was near the road where this woman I had the opportunity to see the prophet pass by when he was traveling to some town, to carry out some mission or something like that.

She had observed the prophet Elisha and realized that he was a man of God because she later told her husband that "this one who always passes by our house is a holy man of God, I understand that he is a holy man of God. God". In other words, this woman had discerned that this man was a man of God and then of course, she wanted to contact him.

How important it is that when we discern the Presence and Work of God in a person that we try to establish a relationship with them. We grow through the relationships and friendships we establish. If you want to grow spiritually it will be better for you to stick with people who love God, whose life expresses the values of the Kingdom of God and who have a clear vision of the Kingdom and what Christian character is because these people are going to influence you late. or later and they will form their character.

So this woman wanted to get closer to the prophet Elisha, that also tells us something, I think, about his spirituality. She was a spiritual woman who wanted to be closer to God and to the things of God. We will see later that she is a woman who has a lot of spiritual and even prophetic discernment, she is a woman of very solid character, and that is the type of person that God obviously wants to bless and wants to reward.

The Bible says that God's eyes scan the entire earth to discover those who have a perfect heart for Him to bless and honor them. How important that our character, our life express the values of the Kingdom of God and this woman evidently wanted intimacy with God, and when she saw this man of God pass by her house, she did not want to simply look at him from a distance but she wanted his experience , his anointing, had an impact on his life. Brothers and sisters, let us not be content with a merely superficial, vague relationship with God, but rather let us seek to enter him more fully into our lives.

In this passage we see this woman continually seeking more intimacy, more closeness to this man who represents the Kingdom of God and therefore she is an example of that type of spirituality that is not content to stay away on the fringes of spiritual life but who wants to enter the center, wants intimacy with God, does not want lukewarmness or spiritual mediocrity, does not want a casual relationship with God but wants to enter into fellowship, to enter into intimacy with the Holy Spirit represented in this case by the prophet Elisha.

Here are some truths from this passage and we will continue to expound it in our next meditation, may the Lord bless you.