Get Up

Read 2 Kings 7-10, 2 Chronicles 22
 
2 Kings 7:3-5 Now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each other. 4 “We will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died anyway.” 5 So at twilight they set out for the camp of the Arameans. But when they came to the edge of the camp, no one was there!
 
YOU may have heard people say, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you have always gotten.” In other words, if you want to change something in your life, you need to change either what you do or how you do it – or both.  
   The four lepers in this Scripture illustrate the power of change. Considering the conditions of Samaria, Israel’s capital city, in the midst of great starvation, we can wonder how the lepers have survived to this point. Apparently they are resourceful men. Now they look at their circumstances - starving Samaria behind them and the deadly enemy Syrians before them. What do they do to survive - or perhaps have less chance of dying?
   At this point, their only hope is a dim hope to go to the Syrians to get some food. Who knows? Perhaps the Syrians will feed and not kill them. Hope’s light is dim, but at least it is visible.
   That’s when the men decide to do something different. Instead of sitting and suffering, of staying and wondering, “What will happen?” they got up and went to Syria’s army encampment. But behold! The enemy was gone from this camp. Not only that, God had opened heaven’s gates to provide food for Samaria’s starving people.
   Do you feel the despair and tension in the lepers’ heart turn to relief, then to anticipation, then to excitement? Acting into the smallest light of hope, they experienced the overwhelming joy of physical salvation pouring over them. Because they got up to go, they discovered God has saved them from hunger and from their poverty. Never again will they have to beg for money or food.   
   This change in their lives is another is a series of ongoing revelations to Samaria – Israel, the Northern Kingdom – of God’s power to provide for his people.  
   God’s mercy moved the Syrian army to get up and go home. His authority also moved the four men to get up and go to God’s provision. Samaria was saved. People no longer had to do despicable things to stay alive.
   God is LORD of all the details. He renews and changes our minds to know what he we must do to go to him. It’s true, isn’t it? So often we can become starved of Jesus’ salvation because we do what we have always done. Our daily habits can easily keep us from Jesus’ table. But we thank God he has prepared a table before us – even in the presence of our enemies (Psalm 23). Get up and go to the feast of his love, joy, faith, and hope.
   You will miss so much if you stay where you are.