Trust and Obey

Daily Reading:  Luke 4

There were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time… And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them… (Luke 4.25, 27, NIV)

Devotional Thought:  Jesus angered the crowd in his hometown of Nazareth when he retold the stories of Elijah and Elisha, two of the most revered prophets in Jewish history.

In the time of Elijah, there was a famine. The rulers blamed the famine on Elijah and sought to destroy him.  God protected him, however, sending him out of the country where a non-Jewish widow provided him food and shelter. Because of her faith and obedience, God provided a miracle for her – a jar of flour that was not used up and a jug of oil that did not run dry – during the entire remainder of the famine.  Jesus said that though "there were many widows in Israel" at that time, they were bypassed because they did not trust and obey.

The same type of thing happened in the next generation when Elisha was the prophet in Israel.  There were many lepers in Israel – where faith was supposed to reside – but God chose to heal a foreigner.  The lepers in Israel were bypassed to bring healing to an oppressor!  Once again, Jesus demonstrated that faith and obedience were what mattered.

How about us today?  Are we, like the Israelites in Elijah’s day and in Elisha’s day?  Will we miss the call of God to have a vital, living faith in Jesus?  Jesus’ words come to us with a demand of faith and obedience.  We can, like those Nazarenes in Jesus’ day, refuse to believe and act upon them.  Or, we can choose to believe and follow them – and be blessed! – as were the widow and the leper.

I choose, in the words of the old hymn, to “trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey!”

Prayer: Jesus, help me to be like the widow and the foreigner who trusted in you and who obeyed you even when it did not make sense.  And may I become a blessing to others as I trust and obey.  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 135.1-7

1 Praise the LORD! Praise the name of the LORD, give praise, O servants of the LORD,

2 who stand in the house of the LORD, in the courts of the house of our God!

3 Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing to his name, for it is pleasant!

4 For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his own possession.

5 For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods.

6 Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.

7 He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.