This is a day of good news!
by David Silvester
In 2 Kings 7 we read how Samaria had been under siege for some time, their food had all gone and people were starving. When God caused the besieging armies of Aram to hear noises that made them think the Samaritans had somehow got other armies to come to their rescue, they fled at night leaving everything behind!
The next day, four leprous men discovered the abandoned camp with its wealth and food, and after beginning to enjoy the spoils they felt guilty, and said, ‘We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves’ (2 Kings 7:9). God had convicted them that the people in the city should also enjoy the spoils.
Sometimes we may be a bit like those people in Samaria when we’ve experienced God’s intervention in our own life, and He’s delivered us from the oppression of the devil and saved us. We’re also like those lepers because we’ve discovered God’s provision of nourishment and riches for our soul. He’s not only saved us from the oppressor, but He’s also given us all we need for our spiritual good, our sustenance and our blessing. These are things He wants us to share with the people who we know are struggling to survive.
When we’ve experienced God working in our life like that we need to be reminded of the words that Jesus said, ‘You are the light of the world …Let your light shine before men’ (Matthew 5:14, and 16). So for us to keep to ourselves what God has done for us ‘is not doing right’.
After Jesus had healed a man and delivered him of evil spirits, He said, ‘Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you’ (Mark 5:19).
Only you know the kind of bondage you may have been delivered from. When we’ve known God’s saving power in our life we’ve got such good news to tell others about what He can do for them also, through Jesus. This is the ‘good news’ of the Gospel that’s too good to keep to ourselves.
There’s a song with the refrain:
‘It is no secret what God can do.
What He’s done for others, He’ll do for you.
With arms wide open He’ll welcome you!
It is no secret what God can do’.
God wants us to go and share the good things He’s done for us with others and let them know that Jesus loves them just as much as He loves us, for ‘this is a day of good news, and it is not good to be keeping it to yourself’.
Prayer: O Lord God, thank You for what You’ve done for me, giving Jesus to save me. Thank You for all the blessings I’ve received since trusting Jesus as my Saviour. Please give me the sensitivity and courage to tell others of what Jesus means to me and how He longs to bless them also. Amen.
David Silvester is married and has a son, two daughters and eight grandchildren. He trained as a production engineer. He then moved on to become a lecturer of engineering craft skills before being called of God in his early fifties to become a pastor of a Baptist church. He says that,"having previously experienced an amazing healing on a day others expected me to die, it came as no surprise that God directed me and my wife, Margaret, to become involved with Ellel Ministries."
Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship. Provided full acknowledgement is made to Seeds of the Kingdom as the source, you are also welcome to use it in a non-commercial way and reproduce it in magazines or other Christian websites. The copyright for any commercial use of the material remains with Ellel Ministries International.
