Elisha’s Reward

We see the radical change in Naaman’s character after he receives his miracle, and the way he now treats the prophet Elisha with the utmost respect and asks him to accept a gift—not payment for his blessing, but a gift. And what is interesting is that Elisha could very well have accepted it, because in a sense it was legitimate.

The Bible says that you must not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain, and we Christians should support God’s servants, because they live by their ministry and have families and financial responsibilities. I do not believe that God wants His children to live in misery, either. We see in Scripture that He wants to sustain His servants, and God provided, for example, a means of support for the priests—not in the way the other Israelites lived, who could receive a portion of land, an inheritance that gave them private property, but through other ways that God provided to sustain His servants throughout their lives.

And it is interesting that the Bible says the Lord tells the priests and the Levites, “I am your inheritance.” There is a great deal to discuss here, because I believe that nowadays we have gone to the other extreme. I remember that in earlier times, when I was a child, I saw other pastors who were poor, going through hard times, struggling, while indifferent congregations did not contribute their tithes and offerings as God commands and did not provide for the care of the Lord’s servant.

And it seems that in our time we have gone to the other extreme: nowadays we see many pastors who believe they are entitled to the lifestyle of movie stars, drawing exorbitant salaries that are not even really salaries. Rather, they use the money of large churches and ministries however they please, without being accountable to a board of directors or exercising any care in how they handle money. And we feel as though, yes, God’s servants should live very luxurious and abundant lives. We would not put it that way, but that is often what is happening.

And I find it interesting, don’t you? Because sometimes we choose the passages that suit us to support the interpretations we want. Here we have this servant of God, used powerfully by the Lord, who could have lived in luxury. In fact, no one could have criticized him, because of the good he was doing and the sacrifices he was making for the Lord. But he utterly refuses to receive a single cent from Naaman, because he understands that the Lord is using his life and that what he is doing cannot be tainted by even the appearance of self-interest.

The influence and power Elisha has over Naaman’s life, and over what God wants to do in this man’s life, depend in large part on Elisha’s always maintaining this stance of dignity, separation and complete integrity—of being a holy priest of God who does not operate the way other men do.

You can see that a contrast is being drawn here between how the Kingdom of God operates and how the kingdom of the world operates. So it is important that Elisha always maintain this priestly nobility and take nothing from this man, as befits someone who belongs to the Kingdom of Heaven, a Kingdom far more powerful than and different from the kingdom of the world. So I believe that is why Elisha rejects the financial reward.

And that is why we see that these great men of God, Elijah and Elisha, did not live ostentatiously. Instead, we see them devoted to the Lord and His glory, and their reward came, rather, from being used by God. Frankly, I would give all the millions in the world to be used as gloriously as Elisha was, and I believe that is how we, too, must be in our lives.

I believe God does not do more transformative things in great nations where we have great movements of God, yet where the impact of the Gospel is not really seen in those nations. There are great movements of the Holy Spirit, but the same corruption, the same crime, the same violence, the same national and social deterioration remain. And in part, I believe, it is because the devil has, as it were, a right to get involved and exert influence. We see all these scandals that continually occur and the collapse of so many ministries because their foundation is not biblical, spiritual, eternal, from another world. We have become contaminated by the world’s values, and then the devil really does have the right to come in and do whatever he pleases.

How different Elisha’s attitude is in this case. “I will receive nothing from you.” And instead of trying to please Naaman, he stands firm in his position, because what was taking place here was a struggle between powers: the power of the world and the Power of God. It was necessary for Elisha to show that he was a member of that higher Kingdom, which operates according to different values.

I think of the apostle Paul in the same way: how Paul supported himself through his own work and said that his glory was in not allowing himself to be bound to anyone. He could very well have accepted support, and no one could ever have criticized him for it, but Paul says, “No, I am not going to receive a cent from you. I prefer to earn my money myself, and that is what God has spoken into my life.”

Not everyone has to do that. As I say, a pastor—I myself receive my support from my church—but we must be very careful about how we handle God’s money, the money of God’s people, who give it for the purposes of the Kingdom of God. We must never fall into any kind of corruption. Indeed, the apostle Paul says we should not even do anything that has the appearance of corruption or of misusing the resources of the Kingdom of God. And that, I would say, is the integrity we must continually strive to demonstrate before the world, before our congregations and before God’s people in general.

Integrity in every way possible: in the use of money, in the use of power, in our moral conduct—all these things, because that is the first testimony we can give to the world. When the world sees men like Elisha, it is forced to think twice before criticizing them.

May God grant that each one of us, in our own sphere of life, may always conduct ourselves with the same lack of self-interest, the same generosity and the same lack of attachment to material things that Elisha displays. I know this is a powerful testimony to Naaman, though perhaps also a little, a little strange, and at first it may have caused him a little annoyance. But that was what God wanted: to teach him a moral and spiritual lesson in every dimension. God bless you, and until our next meditation.