110927 - 2 Chronicles 11-15 - Seek The Lord while He may be found

S: And Asa cried unto the LORD his God, and said, LORD, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O LORD, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee. So the LORD smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled. (2 Chronicles 14:11-12).

O: The reigns of Rehoboam, Abijah and Asa were a time of crisis in Judah. Would they follow God, or turn to idolatry as Israel did? Rehoboam humbled himself at the word of Shemaiah the prophet (12:5-12) but it was only a temporary thing to avoid disaster (v. 14). Abijah inspired faith in God among his army (13:4-12) but his faith seems to have been mainly for that purpose. (1 Kings 15:3) But Asa truly gave his heart to the Lord (14:2-5; 15; 1 Kings 15:14).

A: The actions of the kings and judges of Israel accurately mirror the hearts of men. When facing trouble, we're quick to repent and seek the Lord; when the trouble is over, it's easy to forget the zeal we thought we had for Him. Asa's (which may mean "healer," interestingly enough) reign marked a recalibration away from this trend. For although he did displease the Lord in making a league with Syria (16:7-10), and imprisoning God's corrective messenger, when God apparently wanted him to destroy Syria, and the text remarks that he "sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians" (16:12), he is unique in that he took courage AFTER God delivered him to bring thorough revival, as he understood it, (15:17), to his nation.

P: Lord, thank you for the good examples you provide in your Word, which are only made more effective by the many bad ones. Help me to seek you and purge out sin, even when there seems to be no threat, purely because I want to be pleasing to you.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We have all contracted the virus....

Last week and this weekend, I spent precious development time trying to rid myself of unwanted software on my coumputer called " Virtumonde ." Believe it or not, I'm pretty new to viruses and that kind of thing, coming from a background of developing on the Macintosh platform and using the Windows platforms to deliver product on. Well, this was a nasty wake up call to what Windows users have to deal with all the time. Virtumonde is called "Adware" and it's something that has sneaked on to your computer either by being installed along with some kind of trial software, or getting past your computer's defenses on the network. Its job is to watch what you do at all times with your computer, then occasionally pop up advertisements. In my case, most of the time, these advertisements were for anti-virus software. But they kept popping up an installation window for the software and beginning the installation even when I clicked, "no" for "do you w...
Read more

2023—Week21: Ezra01-Nehemiah11; John19-Acts04

Ezra-Nehemiah 11 : In the Jewish Canon, Ezra and Nehemiah are one book, and, although the division in ours makes sense, it’s clear that they cover the same basic period. They form one answer to the question at the end of 2 Chronicles’ hanging question, “Therefore, who among the LORD's people trusts in his God? Whoever among this group wishes to do so may travel to Jerusalem.” (2 Chronicles 36:23, ISV) Yet despite their trust, the people are greatly weakened until the ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah (and Haggai and Zechariah, Ezra 5:1) encourage them. Ezra’s trust is clearly represented in 8:22, where he is ashamed to request a protective guard for the fortune in treasures he carries, instead trusting in the hand of God for protection. Ezra’s prayer in Ezra 9, Nehemiah’s prayer in Nehemiah 1:5-11, and the people’s covenant prayer in 9:5-37 are the outcome. Faith precedes confession, because we don’t fully understand how badly we fall short until it’s revealed to us. Even then, we ne...
Read more

120613 - Luke 12 - The Devoted Servant

Image
Wednesday SOAP: A faithful servant isn't just (as Dr. J. Vernon McGee used to say) someone who would "vote for" Jesus, but someone who knows His master's will and is attentive - and entirely devoted - to His interests. A well-trained servant knows His master so well that he may be guided without a word - only a simple look, (Psalm 32:8), in contrast to willful animals who must be controlled by leashes, bits and bridles. (Ps. 32:9) S: Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. (Luke 12:37) O: Here's a promise that really sounds like too much. Jesus sounds like He is describing John 13:3-5 - but He is describing a future celebration for those followers who have been "awake." Christ was free to make any promise He wanted - or make no promise at all - so rather than adopting Peter's false humility that wo...
Read more