Steven Furtick - The Cure Is Not What You Think

You know, it's a funny thing about pride, when your heart is full of pride, you try to write your own prescriptions. And you start saying things like, "Well, if they apologize". Or "Well, if they come to me". Well, if they this and if they that". But what if God isn't going to heal you on your terms? What if He isn't going to set everything up to be convenient? What if the command that God gives you is to do something that to you seems insignificant and foolish and embarrassing and humiliating? What if God gives you something to do that seems beneath you?

Naaman said, "The Jordan River"? and he went away angry. Here's the two words that get me in trouble. Verse 11: "I thought". Do you know how many times those two words have stood between me and peace? "I thought". "I thought". Do you know how many times those two words have stood between me and joy? "I thought". How much longer are you gonna worship at the altar of what you thought? What if God wants to do it a different way? What if God wants to do it in a process not in a moment?

Look Naaman expected it to go a certain way, "I thought that he would surely come out to me.". He would come to me. He's supposed to come to me. I'm a great man. People come to me. And I thought he would "stand and call on the name of the Lord his God". I thought he would wave. He was supposed to "wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy". But see, that wasn't the spot that God was aiming for. God wasn't trying to heal Naaman's skin as much as he was trying to create faith in Naaman's heart.

That's why I went off, because I misunderstood what God was trying to do in that moment. I went off, because I got so much more concerned about how I looked in the situation than what God was trying to do through it. And the message today is for somebody who is about to go off. You're sick of it. I don't have to put up with this. Do they know who I am? Namaan said, "Do you know my name, man"? Okay. I'll retire the jokes. I'll just stick to the Bible. "Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel"? I got my prejudice. I got my preference. I got my convenience. I got my thoughts. I got my plan. I got my script. "Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed"? So, watch what Namaan did. He turned and went off. Literally, "He went off in a rage."