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SOME GREAT THING

There was a man by the name of Naaman who lived toward the end of the 9th century B.C.   This man was the captain of all the armies of Syria.   He was vastly wealthy and powerful, and he was trusted and respected by his king.   Despite all that Naaman had going for him, though, he was a leper.     Leprosy was a dreaded disease.  It caused the flesh to rot from the bone; and it made outcasts of those who were afflicted by it because no one wanted to be exposed to it or to look on those who had it.  This was obviously a traumatic situation for anyone, let alone a man in Naaman's position.   During an earlier raid into the land of Israel, the Syrians had taken some captives among whom was a young girl.  This little maiden was placed in the house of Naaman to wait on his wife.  Upon hearing of her new master's affliction, she said to her mistress, "Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him o...
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BREAK UP YOUR FALLOW GROUND

In the fourth chapter of Jeremiah, God says, "Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns."  The idea of plowing the ground before planting it is very natural; but when we consider the process, it can seem like a very violent act to the earth that we are preparing.   We tear open the surface with the plowshare or pulverize the ground with a rotary tiller, churning and softening the dirt to create a rich seedbed in which the new plants will thrive and produce crops.   Fallow ground is that which has not been planted for a time but has been left to grow over with weeds.   Being unplanted, it is therefore unfruitful and unproductive.   It becomes a tangle of useless vines and thorns.   We, as individuals, often have areas of our lives that we have left "fallow."   These are areas that are unfruitful and unproductive for the Lord.   We all know that the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5 is, "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentl...
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THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE

Jesus’ teaching was very hard for the people to accept.   Just the day before, He had multiplied a few loaves and fish to feed over five thousand people.   They had come out to see Him then because of the miracles that He was performing on the sick and afflicted.   They loved Him then, but their focus seemed to be more on those miracles than on trying to understand the words of life that Jesus was speaking to them.   They were ready to accept Him as a prophet, and they would have even tried to make Him a king; but they couldn’t see that Jesus was much more than that: He was the Son of God and their long-awaited Messiah.   Jesus had sent His twelve disciples over the sea to Capernaum the night before.   It was then that He had appeared to them walking on the sea as they struggled against a great storm.   When the people realized that Jesus had gone, they found means to cross the sea also and found Jesus at Capernaum.   Jesus called them out by ...
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