Nuggets 93: Don't Make Me Go

  • B. Shelburne
  • Jun 21, 2008
  • Series: Nuggets

Things were desperate.  No rain in three years.  Israel had turned their back on God to follow a manufactured god named Baal.  Not only was it dumb to worship a piece of metal and call it god, but worshiping Baal involved sexual and other sins.  To make it worse, Israel's king and queen, Ahab and Jezebel, were leading the charge.  God had sent his prophet Elijah to tell Ahab, "There will be no rain in Israel until Israel learns that God, not Baal, sends the rain." 

Ahab was furious.  He had rather kill the messenger than respect the message.  He turned the country upside down hunting Elijah, but God was hiding him.  Now after three years, time enough for God's saving discipline to sink in, God says to Elijah, "Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land."   God commands the unreasonable, the impossible.  Ahab has murder in his eye.  But Elijah trustingly obeys God.  He goes where he doesn't want to go.

Are there certain people you had rather not see, people whom you would do anything to avoid?  And may it be that it is God’s will for you to go to them?  Has God chosen you to deliver certain truths, truths that could change lives?  Are there apologies you need to make, old hostilities to be resolved, things to be made right?  Can you afford to wait for the other person to make the first move? Are both of your lives bogged spiritually until the right communication happens?  Elijah had been running away but now it was time to go.  God was about to bring Israel back to himself in a marvelous way.  But the stronghold of idolatry in Israel could not be broken until Elijah went where he didn't want to go.

Hard as it was, Elijah was able to move forward because he trusted God completely.  If he walked in God’s will, God would protect and enable him.  God will do the same for you and me.  When will we ever learn that God's way is the only way for things to come right?  When we submit in faith, marvelous break-throughs may happen which otherwise would never come.

1 Kings chapters 17,18;  Luke 17:3;  Matthew 18:15-18;  5:23,24

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Copyright 2007 by G.B. Shelburne, III.  May be freely reproduced or forwarded for non-commercial purposes provided content is unchanged and this copyright notice is included.  These shepherding messages are sent to members and friends of New Beginnings Church (www.nbchurch.com), to students and alumni of South Houston Bible Institute (www.shbi.org), and to other interested persons.

 

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