The One Year Bible - Day 180

The divided kingdom has suffered in many ways. The kings of Israel are generally evil in God's eyes and they go from disaster to disaster until ultimately, it seems that whoever kills the king becomes the new king with no reference to God at all. Although Judah is better in this respect, it is still said of most of these kings that they did not serve God wholeheartedly. That they still allowed pagan shrines and incense to be burned there. I often wonder about churches that on the surface are successful and could be said to be "doing good before God" but which have little hollows with things hidden that are un-Godly. Whether bad relationships, idolatry of people or buildings or certain teachings or whatever rather than destroying everything that is not of God. I wonder how much better these churches would be without that and whether the reason why many churches do very well and then not so well is not due to people getting bored but with issues not dealt with! We then get a bad egg in king Ahaz as we sometimes do in church who decided to marry the church with the world and to join forces with a foreign king. Would we do that nowadays? What would that look like?

The One Year Bible - Day 179

Yesterday we read about the final years of Joash. It seems a shame that he was generally a good king and followed God but presumably didn't have the courage of a soldier. When Jerusalem is threatened with attack, he simply pays off the attackers which of course prevents the attack but costs him dearly and betrays a lack of trust in God. I wonder sometimes when we make decisions that work out but which could have had better outcomes if we had asked God instead. We might pay off an unfair parking ticket whereas God would have us contest it and win. Even in spiritual matters, we might try and take the easy way out of a damaged relationship rather than accepting the confrontation and the solution that God can bring through that!

The One Year Bible - Day 178

Joash was 7 years old when he became king! We read again today about the relationship between the king and the priest. In this case, the priest had to instigate revolution in order to bring back the kingdom of Judah to God. He did this despite the fact he was not the king. I wonder what this means for the Christian today. Is the king a bit like the pastor and the priest is like a prophet? Does this imply that we need to ensure that we have people who can challenge us and even perform certain duties in order for us to perform ours? If we are leaders, do we surround ourselves with "yes men" or with people whose spirituality we recognise and respect, even when they disagree with us?

The One Year Bible - Day 178

"At about that time the Lord began to cut down the size of Israel’s territory". It begins with disobedience and carelessness and ends up with our 'territory' being reduced. Has your territory reduced? Was it because you were careless and/or disobedient? Well the good news is that it is totally reversible and requires a fresh dedication of yourself to Himself so that you can start to defeat the enemy in the parts of your ministry that have suffered. Take it back people! Whose Kingdom are you fighting for?

The One Year Bible - Day 177

Jehu replied, "What do you know about peace?"
What do we know about peace? We know that we sort of like peace because it's easy and relaxing but Jesus famously said, "I have not come to bring peace but a sword". But if Jesus is the Prince of Peace and if we can have a "peace that transcends all understanding" why did Jesus say that He did not come to bring peace?
It is because like a lot of things, we don't really understand the difference between human peace and God's peace. We want human peace but God's peace is not about comfort and easy lives as much as it is about being at peace with Him. The peace of God requires work and confrontation as well as boldness and suffering. In other words, we have to sometimes forfeit our peace for His peace.

The One Year Bible - Day 176

Today Elisha warns the woman from Shunem to go and live in a foreign country because of a famine. The problem with famines is that there is much suffering and people die so it is natural that we would avoid famines. It was because of this woman's closeness to Elisha and therefore God that allowed her to know about and avoid the coming famine. I wonder how many of our famines we could have avoided if we had listened to God in the first place?

The One Year Bible - Day 175

A great story today of how God has many arrows in his quiver - or many ways of fixing a problem. If you asked a human how to fix the famine and deal with the invading army, you might have thought of planning an effective attack, planting a lot of food and attempting to wait around until it had grown enough to eat. Not so with God, he made the Arameans think they were being chased so they all fled! Interestingly the officer who had not believed in God died as a result of what God did - he died in his unbelief. We must not restrict God's hand by praying for our solutions, we should take Him the problem and let Him decide the best way to deal with it!