March 27, 2019
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My wife and her family were out for a swim in a nearby river. They had invited their pastor to go with them. He was pretty much a pool swimmer - a lake swimmer. He was unfamiliar with the river currents that can make swimming a little more challenging than usual. Pastor wasn't aware of the whirlpool in that water near the bluffs that overlooked the river. He got too close, and suddenly he got sucked into that swirling water. Their pastor was in serious trouble. And since everyone was swimming, they didn't immediately see the danger he was in. He'd already gone down twice when he finally managed to get off one yell for help. My father-in-law responded immediately and he went in for the rescue, and he saved his pastor's life that day.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Everyday Stuff, Never Everyday Again."
My father-in-law was not a professional lifeguard. Had he waited for one that day when his pastor's life was at stake, his pastor would have died. But this was a man who knew that he was the one that was there, and the responsibility for the rescue rests with the one who is where the dying person is. Right? Especially when it comes to the people near us who are going down spiritually; dying spiritually because they don't know the Savior who's the only one who can rescue them from the death penalty for their sins.
Once you realize the ultimate reason why you are where you are, your everyday activities will never be everyday again. Consider the example of the young woman in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Kings 5:2-3. It's the story of a young Jewish girl who has been taken captive by the Syrians and forced to become a servant girl in the home of a Syrian military commander. She's clearly a victim of unfair circumstances that are beyond her control. She's in a situation that had to be lonely, she's ripped from her home, she's forced to live in another country, and we can be pretty sure she's in a place she doesn't want to be. But none of that makes her forget why she is where she is. In the course of her everyday chores, she has the opportunity to save a life...and she does.
Her master, General Naaman, has developed leprosy. He will die from it unless he can find a cure which, humanly, does not exist. But the Bible tells us, "She said to her mistress, 'If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.'" She realizes she is in a unique position to save this man's life because she knows the dying person and she knows the only one who can save him. Now, if you belong to Jesus Christ, that is exactly the position God has put you in with the people you go to school with, the people you work with, the people you live near, the people you recreate with, the people in your family.
When you go where you go each day to do what you do each day, you go on an eternal rescue mission! Jesus put you there so you can take some of those people to heaven with you. Every day, you're there to show by your life the difference that Jesus makes and to capture every God-given opportunity to tell them how they can belong to Him. And suddenly this everyday stuff you do, it becomes eternally significant.
That Syrian commander did not die by the way, because someone who worked for him cared enough to tell him how he could live. Imagine if that girl had been too shy or too scared to speak up about the answer she knew. Her silence would have been his death sentence. And so it is for the people near you who don't know Jesus. Your silence could ultimately mean their death sentence, because you know the Jesus who is their only hope. They don't know Him, but they do know you. And, humanly speaking, you are their best chance - maybe their only chance - of ever belonging to Jesus...and of ever being in heaven with you someday.