A Lesson From the Lepers

If you've read any of my recent blogs, it shouldn't take much inferring that God wants me to do something. I just haven't figured out what that something is.

For the longest time I've thought that to truly love God, I must serve Him. Serve Him how? Well, the gospels of Matthew and Mark quote Jesus as saying in no uncertain terms (and I think this command too frequently gets chopped in half), go and make disciples (or preach the gospel) and baptize.

That seems to be fairly straight forward instructions. If Jesus was writing an instruction manual for disciples, I would suppose those verses would be right at the top of page one.

Certainly, there were first-century Christians that weren't like the apostles. Not every believer was traveling from town to town and preaching in the streets. As Paul said, some are given to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (yes, there is a difference between each one). But these are the jobs that are available. Notice there are no openings for "idle believer."

My fear is that if I'm not telling others about Christ, then I'm idle and there is no place for that in God's kingdom.

I love listening to Ravi Zacharias' podcast and encourage you to do the same. Tonight I listened to a two-part series titled "Why Sit Here till We Die." That message sparked this blog.

Ravi preached from 2 Kings 7. It was a dark time in Israel as there had been a terrible famine and the city was surrounded by the Syrians. Doom seemed inevitable. The people in the city had resorted to cannibalism. It was a desperate time (and we think gas at $3.40 a gallon is bad).

Starting with verse 3, there were four lepers at the entrance to the city, who had been cast out because of their affliction. They too had run out of food and reasoned among themselves, if we go into the city, there is no food and we will die. If we stay here, we will die. But if we surrender to the Syrians, maybe, just maybe, they will have pity on us and give us food. Worse case scenario, they kill us. They had four choices and only one had life as a possible conclusion. Pretty sound reasoning to me.

You may know the rest of the story. The lepers show up to the Syrian camp, but no one was there, for God had intervened and caused the Syrians to flee and leave all their food and possessions behind. These four outcasts started having quite a party. But then they thought, we shouldn't keep this to ourselves. We should go tell the king of the good news.

Imagine if these lepers would have stayed at the camp. They could have lived their on their own indefinitely. And who could have blamed them? They were lepers that had been run out of town. However, they had an abundance. They had something that their city needed.

Just as Israel needed this food, we Christians have something that our neighbors need: the message of salvation. It would only be selfish to live on the abundance of God's favor and not share it with those in need. Obviously this could include material items or finances, but above all else, the message of Christ. Food and clothing are necessary, but as Jesus told us, if we have faith in Him, God will provide that. It's like the old "give a man a fish...teach a man to fish" saying.

This brings me back to my original point. God wants me to do something. Maybe I don't know what just yet. But in the mean time I could--no, should--be sharing my faith with a city full of people that need it as desperately as a starving person needs food. That's what God put me here for: To share the best of what I have (which is the love of Christ), not wait to die.

Let me close this blog by quoting Ravi from his message. This refers to the plight of the lepers, who were deciding between life and death. "Siting and doing nothing. It is a form of death. Why not go and see what God is doing and join in with Him. All too often, we do what we want to do and ask if He wants to join with us."