June 15
2 Kings 2:1-25; 4:1-44
If God asked you, "What do you want?", what is it that you would ask for? Our pastor, Lloyd Pulley, posed this question to those in the congregation, after teaching in Luke, specifically when blind Bartimaeus was asked in Luke 18:40-41, "When Jesus heard him, he stopped and ordered that the man be brought to him. As the man came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord,” he said, “I want to see!”" In a similar fashion we read this request posed to Solomon in 2 Chronicles 1:7, " That night God appeared to Solomon and said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!”" In these two examples, one asked for sight, the other asked for wisdom. How about you, what would you ask for? I asked myself this question, and I realize that though we are told in Romans 8:35-39, that we will never be separated from Jesus Christ once we engage in a relationship with Him, there are times in each day, that I choose to go it alone in my own strength and my own flesh. I would ask that God would purify my heart so that I would sense His presence continuously, without ceasing, both while on this earth and straight through to eternity. We read in Matthew 5:8, "God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God." That's my answer after a short time meditating on this question.
In today's reading we see a similar question being asked. We read the interaction between Elijah and Elisha, just prior to Elijah being taken away into heaven in 2 Kings 2:9-10, "When they came to the other side, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I can do for you before I am taken away.” And Elisha replied, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit and become your successor.” “You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah replied. “If you see me when I am taken from you, then you will get your request. But if not, then you won’t.”" Elisha indeed received this double share. Likewise in the encounter between the Woman from Shunem and Elisha, the Woman desires her son's life restored, and God through Elisha restores the boy's life. Notice for a moment how closely connected Elisha was with God, when we read in 4:27, " But when she came to the man of God at the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gehazi began to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone. She is deeply troubled, but the Lord has not told me what it is.”" Elisha was walking so closely with God that rather than being surprised when God did talk to him, he was surprised when God didn't speak to him.
Pastor Lloyd shared a true story of an extremely wealthy man who lovingly lavished his son with riches the likes of which we will never know. One day the man went to meet up with his son and found a suicide note on the door. After finding his son who had just successfully committed suicide, he read the note which stated what a loving father this man was, but the son realized that after having everything that money could buy, it still left him unfulfilled. Money and things can never satisfy, only God can. Over and over again I hear from my patients that they just want things to go back to normal. Would that be their request if God were to ask them? Would it be for riches or some earthly trinket? We read in James 4:2, "You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it." What is our greatest desire? For if it is what someone else has, or for earthly satisfaction, we ask amiss. God alone satisfies. How close we walk with Him will probably be the biggest determinant of the level of joy in your life. My desire is to walk closer with Him, seek Him more, take Him with me everywhere, and experience what it is that He has planned for me as I live out the course that He has given me.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: