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Are You A Good King?

2 Chronicles 13-16, 1 Kings 15:1-24

Do you remember “The Wizard of Oz”?  When Dorothy landed in Munchkinland the Good Witch Glinda asked her if she was a good witch or a bad witch.  Today’s reading reminded me of that question.  There weren’t a lot of good kings in the divided kingdoms after Solomon.  Today we are comparing the 2 Chronicles and 1 Kings versions of the story of Asa who is generally considered a “good king”.  The following verses are examples of why.

1 Kings 15:11

“And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David his father had done.”

1 Kings 15:14

“…Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true to the Lord all his days.”

Asa was the great grandson of Solomon.  This means there were two kings who reigned after Solomon and prior to Asa.  Solomon had started strong and then faded away from his relationship with God.  Rehoboam followed Solomon and reigned for 17 years.  He did not follow the ways of God.  His son Abijah followed Rehoboam and he reigned 3 years.  He did not follow the ways of God.  His son Asa followed Rehoboam and he reigned for 41 years.  He did follow in the ways of God.

I ran across a chronological table of the kings of the divided kingdoms which showed their order and length of reign as well as their character in J Vernon McGee’s “Thru the Bible” commentary.  The Northern Kingdom made up of 10 Tribes of Israel, and called Israel, had no king listed as good.  The Southern Kingdom made up of the tribe of Judah and part of Benjamin, and called Judah, had only 8 out of 20 listed as good.  I have included the table below.  I hope you can see it.  If it looks too small hold down your control key and push your “+” button, that will magnify the web page.  To make it smaller hold the control key and press your “-” key.

What struck me about the table is the difference between the good and bad kings length of reign in the kingdom of Judah.  On average a good king’s reign lasted 29.5 years while a bad king’s reign lasted 10.8 years.  That’s a big difference isn’t it?  In the Bible God says to obey your mother and father so that it will go well with you in the land He is giving you and that your days may be long.  That principle is true with your Heavenly Father as well.  If you obey him your life will, on average, be better and longer.  This seems to have been the case with the kings of the divided kingdoms.  Those that attempted to be faithful to God had longer reigns than those who did not.

Are you faithful to God?  Are you obedient?  Are you a good king or a bad king?  Anything in your life that is more important to you than Him is an idol which means you are being unfaithful.  Ouch!  First things first brothers, get right with God and stay right with God.

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

As A New Man, Which Way Will You Go?

1 Samuel 9-12

I found this passage of Scripture particularly poignant.  We can learn a lot about God in these verses.

Let me ask you a question, of the two, Saul and David, who is remembered as the greatest king of Israel?  Is it Saul?  In today’s reading we are introduced to Saul.  The Israelites have gone to Samuel and asked that he anoint a king over them.  This is a rejection of God’s authority over them; it is a great sin as we read in chapter 12.

1 Samuel 12:17

“Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king.”

Still, God gives them a king, and his choice seems to physically reflect what one would expect of a king; he is a big, handsome young man.

1 Samuel 9:2

“And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people.”

In those days a king was a big, strong warrior.  Who would you rather follow on to an ancient battlefield, a small, ugly dude or a big, strong, handsome fellow?  I don’t know that handsome would be important to me but I’d like a guy big enough to hide behind!  I suspect most of the Israelites were nodding their heads in approval of this big guy.  Those who grumbled against this choice probably did so out of a desire to be king themselves or a desire for the king to come from their own tribe.  Notice, however, that the victory over the Ammonites that Saul gained came about because of the work God did in and through him.  The victory was not due to Saul’s own ability.

What really caught my attention in today’s reading was how God changed Saul to use him to His purposes.

1 Samuel 10:6

“Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.”

Brothers, I am constantly praying that God will turn me into the man He created me to be.  If I had any doubts about His ability to do this, the verse above has certainly put an end to that.  Here is another example of this.

1 Samuel 10:9

“When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart.”

God changed Saul into a new man; a king with a new heart.  Later we will learn that Saul wandered away from God and lost the right to rule.  God’s later selection of a king to take the place of Saul better reflects what God looks for in His champion; a man after God’s own heart.  David was not a big man; in fact he was rather small.  David was not a warrior’s warrior, although he won great battles and was a brilliant strategist.  David also liked to sing, and dance, and play music; he had a real sensitive side.

If you put David and Saul side by side and told a group of people to “choose one of these men to be king”, most would choose Saul, and yet it was David who was brave enough to stand before Goliath.  Where did David get such strength and bravery?  He got it from God.  David loved God with all his heart.  David sinned and he was punished greatly for it, but there was never a doubt about where he got his power and whom he loved.

Saul eventually got a little big for his britches, believing he had something to do with his own success.  He didn’t just stumble from time to time; Saul wandered far from God.  This reading today showed me that God has the power to change a man’s heart; to turn him into a new man.  It has also shown me that much depends on how the man responds to the change.  Will he use this change to his own selfish ends or will he use it to the glory of God?  That is a very important question.

How about you?  When you accepted Christ you became a new man.  God placed in you a new heart capable of obeying God and following Christ.  How have you used that new heart?  Are you still chasing after your own selfish desires or are you pursuing the will of God?  Remember brothers, where your heart is, there too is your treasure.

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

King Of The Castle

Deuteronomy 16-18

I was reading Deuteronomy 17 today when I came across God’s laws for the kings of Israel.  When we get to 1 Samuel the Israelites will come to God’s prophet Samuel and ask that they be given a king so they can be like other nations.  Samuel is outraged by this request and rightfully so for they are rejecting God’s leadership of their lives.  Still God agrees to give them what they ask for even though they will regret their decision.

What is interesting to me is that God knew they were going to ask for a king.  We know this because here in Deuteronomy God gives instructions for these kings.

Deuteronomy 17:18-19

“And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests.  And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them”

When I was a kid I heard my father say, more than once, “I am the king of this castle!”  This was usually announced in response to one of us kids asking why we needed to do something he had just told us to do.  The Bible tells us that as men we are to be the spiritual head of our homes.  Unfortunately some of us too often think we are kings with unlimited power.  We expect everyone to serve us as lord of the manner.  Christ, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords came not to be served but to serve.  He is to be our example in all things.  Being head of the house doesn’t mean we are to be served but to serve.  It isn’t easy job.  We have a natural desire to be all about ourselves rather than others.

How can we remind ourselves of our responsibilities before God to be self-sacrificing in leading our families?  The passage above makes it clear.  Reading God’s Word on a DAILY basis will help us in this regard.  This is exactly why I started this blog.  I need to be in God’s Word every day.  Doing so helps me remember who I am supposed to be.  It will help you be the man God intends you to be as well.

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

A Prince Among Men

Galatians 3-5

Do you feel like a prince among men?  If I asked your wife would she say you are a prince among men?  If you were really a prince how would you feel?  If you were a child of a great king, an inheritor of a great fortune, how would you face the world?  If you were a child of the king would there be any reason for you to be fearful of failure?  Would there be any reason for fear at all?  Would you walk through this world with your head down and your shoulders hunched just hoping to get through another day?

I’ve got to tell you, if I were the son of a king, an inheritor of great power and wealth, I would walk through the world with my head held high.  I would be exceedingly confident and eager for the next grand adventure.  No, the world wouldn’t get me down.  I wouldn’t be like everybody else.  I wouldn’t have to worry about the common things of life.  I wouldn’t worry about my next meal or my next anything for that matter.  To paraphrase a famous movie line “It’s good to be the prince!”

The thing is guys, having accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior we have been adopted into the Royal Family.  We are now children of the Living God.  Is there any King more powerful or wealthy than He?  Why is it we so often walk around as if we are defeated paupers; orphans in an ugly world?  Why do we continually allow ourselves to be pulled back toward the slavery of sin?  Before I go too far on this let me point out what Paul has written in today’s reading.

Galatians 3:26

“for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”

Galatians 3:29 – 4:1

“And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.  I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, “

Now there is an interesting thought.  We are children of the King and yet no different from a slave!  How can that be?  A long time ago in a land far away I was a teenager.  I remember getting up one Saturday morning and, lounging in my sleeping attire, watching TV.  My dad came into the room and curtly said get dressed and come with me.  I got up, got dressed, and followed him out to the car.  We drove to a house and painted the interior.  My dad never told me why we painted that house.  It was a rather strange occurrence.

Years later I learned that money had been a little tight and a friend of my Dad had paid him to paint the interior of a rental property.  My Dad was providing for his family and, as his son who was old enough to assist him, I was expected to do so.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but my brothers and sister and I ate the produce of that joint father-son effort.

Now I never resisted my father’s direction to get up and go.  He was my father.  He provided for my well-being, kept me safe, and always had my best interest at heart even when I didn’t understand what he was asking of me.  I needed direction.  I needed someone to watch out for me.  I needed someone who understood the big picture to ensure I was headed in the right direction.  Beside all of that, I was part of a family.  My father was the head of that family and I had obligations and responsibilities to him and to the family.  I was instructed to do work because that work would help the family.  I was asked to do things to help my mother, my brothers, my sister, and my father.

Some children rebel against their father’s authority.  They feel like they are being treated as a slave.   They don’t seem to understand that as part of a family they have obligations and responsibilities toward their father and the rest of their family.  They are not slaves, they are heirs.  Do you remember the story of the sons of Jacob (Israel)?  He had twelve sons and they were regularly at work tending their father’s flocks; the family business as it were.  They were tending to their inheritance.  What was their father’s was theirs.  They were not slaves.

Some young people flee the protection of their family home; they run away.  They soon find out the hard way that they had it pretty good.  The reality is they are more a slave away from their father’s home than they ever were in it.  Brothers, we are free in Christ.  We are not slaves but heirs.  To wander away from our father’s love and protection makes no sense.

Galatians 5:1

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

I implore you friend, reject the yoke of slavery to sin and rejoice in your responsibilities and obligations in Christ.  You are, after all, a prince!

Have a princely day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Are you one of these? Your slip is showing Nancy! Man up!

No Namby-Pambies!

Jeremiah 37-40

Have you seen that GEICO commercial that has a drill sergeant as a psychotherapist?  They have this weepy guy lying on a sofa and the therapist is calling him names and yelling at him to man up.  At one point the therapist offers the crybaby a tissue and as he reaches for it the therapist throws the box at him.  I want to do that with Zedekiah.

As I went through today’s reading I noticed that Zedekiah is a bit of a sniveling little weasel.  Jeremiah kept warning Zedekiah and the people of Judah but they wouldn’t listen to him.  In fact, yesterday we read how Zedekiah cut off pieces of Jeremiah’s scroll as it was read and threw them into the fire until the entire scroll had been burned.  He didn’t want these dire warnings to spread.

Now we read that Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah to pray before God for him.  He didn’t want to listen to God, or the warnings coming from God through Jeremiah, but he still wanted God to save him from his predicament through the intercession of a man whom he has threatened.  Evidently he viewed God as many view Him today.  He viewed God as the great servant in the sky.  He wouldn’t obey, but he expected God to do his bidding.

Jeremiah was later wrongly accused of attempting to go over the enemy, the Chaldeans, and he was subsequently beaten and imprisoned by Zedekiah’s officials.  Now Zedekiah was really worried about his own neck.  You see Nebuchadnezzar had placed Zedekiah on the throne to be his puppet king after having taken the former king of Judah into exile in Babylon.  A guy like Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t like any king to stand up against him let alone a king he placed on a throne.  If Judah fell Zedekiah knew things were not going to go well for him personally.

Zedekiah didn’t demand that Jeremiah be released and he didn’t obey God’s instructions to surrender.  Instead he sent for Jeremiah secretly to ask him again if there was any message from the Lord.  He wasn’t going to change, but he wanted to hear from God again.  He didn’t like the message.  He wasn’t going to obey but he kept hoping against hope that he could continue in his disobedience and God would, for some reason, change His mind about the coming destruction.  He wouldn’t listen to any word from God except the word he wanted to here.  I’ve done that; how about you?

God isn’t the big servant in the sky.  He rules; you serve.  It is that simple.  If you don’t serve Him, life and eternity are going to hurt.  “Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more.”  (For those of you who are wondering, that is an archaic Monte Python reference used completely out of context.) When will we get it?  We don’t give Him orders.  He does not serve us.  We obey or we get hurt.  Ignoring what God has to say, hoping for a different answer, is still going to hurt.  His will, will be done!

Later Jeremiah was cast into a cistern for his prophesying.  Even in this dark story of lost and evil men, one in Zedekiah’s court stands out as righteous.

Jeremiah 38:7-10

“When Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern—the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate— Ebed-melech went from the king’s house and said to the king,  “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”  Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, “Take thirty men with you from here, and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”

Zedekiah was a real namby-pamby but at least this eunuch Ebed-melech was able to influence him for some good.  Ebed knew right and wrong and he stood up in the chamber of power to say what was right.  He was not disrespectful.  He was not indignant.  He was not loud.  He simply called evil “evil”.  He said that a thing was wrong and by so doing he saved an innocent man.

It is hard to stand up to power.  I suspect we will be called upon to do more and more of that here in America in the very near future.  We do not need to be angry, indignant, or hateful but we do need to simply call evil “evil”.  Both Jeremiah and Ebed stood up for righteousness and they both received their reward on earth and an even greater one in heaven.  Jeremiah had a very rough time obeying God.  I don’t mean he struggled to obey; I mean his obedience caused him hardship.  That should be considered the norm.  Our obedience will not come with gumdrops and lollipops.  Obedience costs something; it requires the denying of one’s self and the taking up of one’s cross.  Sometimes there are eventual rewards on earth; always there are rewards in heaven.  Look at Ebed:

Jeremiah 39:15-18

“The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was shut up in the court of the guard:  “Go, and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will fulfill my words against this city for harm and not for good, and they shall be accomplished before you on that day. But I will deliver you on that day, declares the Lord, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid.  For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have put your trust in me, declares the Lord.’”

I’m reminded of the twin sides of faith; trust and obey!  Don’t be a namby-pamby!

Have a manly day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

What Is Your Pain Threshold?

Jeremiah 14-17

I often shake my head at Israel and Judah as I wonder how often God must warn them and show them His power before they finally understand that they must be in right relationship with Him if they wish to have His blessings?  How often do they have to feel His discipline before they change their ways for good and obey their Savior?  My thoughts then naturally turn to us today.  How often will we have to feel God’s discipline before we change our ways?

I once heard it said that pain is the precursor to change.  In other words, we don’t change until the pain of continuing as we are is greater than the pain of changing.  I kind of view this as a form of Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of motion.  To paraphrase horribly, those laws basically say that an object at rest will remain at rest unless it is acted upon by an external force.  Let me restate that law in terms of human behavior.  A person at rest in sinful behavior will remain in that sinful behavior unless acted upon by an external force.  God is that external force.  He acts on the lost and the saved.

When we get stuck in a sinful habit we find it difficult to break that habit.  Often it is just easier to remain in sin than to make the changes necessary to be free of that habit.  What motivates us to change when the inertia of our habits holds us so firmly?  Pain.  When things get painful enough we will make a change.  It has always been that way for me and I’ll bet, if you think back, it’s been that way for you as well.  Now some people have a higher tolerance for pain which means more pain is required to produce change.

Over the centuries Israel and Judah raised their pain threshold.  God disciplined Israel and Judah but over time they learned to tune the pain out.  They became so desensitized to God’s discipline that He finally had to turn the dial all the way up to 11.  Israel had been taken into exile and Judah soon followed.  Today’s reading continues the warning of what is to come.  Jeremiah tries to bargain with God for the salvation of the people just like Moses did after their release from Egypt.  God, however, says not this time.  They have been given over to the consequences of their sin.  The dial has been broken off.

Still God reminds us of how we can be blessed or cursed.

Jeremiah 17:5-10

“Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Cursed is the man who trusts in man; in himself.  His life is like a dried out shrub living in a dusty, dry, forlorn, empty, lifeless wasteland.  Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.  His life is like that of a tree that lives next to a river.  Such a tree has a constant source of sustenance.  Such a tree fears not the heat for its roots tap an unending supply of life giving water.  Such a tree bears much fruit.  Can you see that beautiful tree surrounded by lush grass and an abundance of life?

What a line – “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick”.  Ain’t that the truth!  And the scary thing is God searches our hearts and our minds.  From our heart and mind flow our actions and God will pay us accordingly.  For the wages of sin is death.  The wages of Judah’s sin was destruction and exile.

In today’s reading we also hear that while God plans Judah’s destruction He also plans its restoration.  He will always maintain a remnant for His purpose and glory.  It is true for all of us as well.  He disciplines His own.  He will do whatever it takes to restore us to right relationship with Him.  He will apply the pain until we make the necessary changes.  Until we make those changes, we will feel like that bush in the desert.  As we make the changes He requires we will feel more and more like that tree tapping the river of sustenance; living in a luscious life of spiritual abundance.

Do you remember Jesus words to the woman at the well?

John 4:10

“Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

Or how about what He said on the last day of a great feast:

John 7:37-38

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”

It is this very water that Judah had rejected.

Jeremiah 17:13

“O Lord, the hope of Israel,
all who forsake you shall be put to shame;
those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth,
for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.”

Brothers, I hope you aren’t rejecting the fountain of living water.  I hope you are not like that bush in the desert.  I hope you don’t require the dial of pain to be turned to 11 before you make the changes in your life that God requires.

May you have a pain-free day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!