Devotions

20240921

making the best

1 Kings 14:21-15:24 (JDV)

1 Kings 14:21 Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king; he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city where Yahveh had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put his name. Rehoboam’s mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite.
1 Kings 14:22 Judah did what was evil in Yahveh’s sight. They provoked him to jealous anger more than all that their ancestors had done with the sins they committed.
1 Kings 14:23 They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree;
1 Kings 14:24 there were even male cult prostitutes in the land. They imitated all the detestable practices of the nations Yahveh had dispossessed before the Israelites.
1 Kings 14:25 In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt went to war against Jerusalem.
1 Kings 14:26 He seized the treasuries of Yahveh’s temple and the treasuries of the royal palace. He took everything. He took all the gold shields that Solomon had made.
1 Kings 14:27 King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and committed them to the care of the captains of the guards who protected the entrance to the king’s palace.
1 Kings 14:28 Whenever the king entered Yahveh’s temple, the guards would carry the shields, then they would take them back to the armory.
1 Kings 14:29 The rest of the events of Rehoboam’s reign, along with all his accomplishments, are written about in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings.
1 Kings 14:30 There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam throughout their reigns.
1 Kings 14:31 Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. His son Abijam became king in his place.
1 Kings 15:1 In the eighteenth year of Israel’s King Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah,
1 Kings 15:2 and he reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom.
1 Kings 15:3 Abijam walked in all the sins his father before him had committed, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to Yahveh his God as his ancestor David had been.
1 Kings 15:4 But for the sake of David, Yahveh his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up his son after him and by preserving Jerusalem.
1 Kings 15:5 Because David did what was right in Yahveh’s sight, and he did not turn aside from anything he had commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hethite.
1 Kings 15:6 There had been a war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of Rehoboam’s life.
1 Kings 15:7 The rest of the events of Abijam’s reign, along with all his accomplishments, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings. There was also a war between Abijam and Jeroboam.
1 Kings 15:8 Abijam rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. His son Asa became king in his place.
1 Kings 15:9 In the twentieth year of Israel’s King Jeroboam, Asa became king of Judah,
1 Kings 15:10 and he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His grandmother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom.
1 Kings 15:11 Asa did what was right in Yahveh’s sight, as his ancestor David had done.
1 Kings 15:12 He banished the male cult prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
1 Kings 15:13 He also removed his grandmother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa chopped down her obscene image and burned it in the Kidron Valley.
1 Kings 15:14 The high places were not taken away, but Asa was wholeheartedly devoted to Yahveh his entire life.
1 Kings 15:15 He brought his father’s consecrated gifts and his own consecrated gifts into Yahveh’s temple: silver, gold, and utensils.
1 Kings 15:16 There was war between Asa and King Baasha of Israel throughout their reigns.
1 Kings 15:17 Israel’s King Baasha went to war against Judah. He built Ramah to keep anyone from leaving or coming to King Asa of Judah.
1 Kings 15:18 So Asa withdrew all the silver and gold that remained in the treasuries of Yahveh’s temple and the treasuries of the royal palace and gave it to his servants. Then King Asa sent them to Ben-hadad son of Tabrimmon son of Hezion king of Aram who lived in Damascus, saying,
1 Kings 15:19 “There is a treaty between me and you, between my father and your father. Look, I have sent you a gift of silver and gold. Go and break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel so that he will withdraw from me.”
1 Kings 15:20 Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. He attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, all Chinnereth, and the whole land of Naphtali.
1 Kings 15:21 When Baasha heard about it, he quit building Ramah and stayed in Tirzah.
1 Kings 15:22 Then King Asa gave a command to everyone without exception in Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and the timbers Baasha had built it with. Then King Asa built Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah with them.
1 Kings 15:23 The rest of all the events of Asa’s reign, along with all his might, all his accomplishments, and the cities he built, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings. But in his old age, he developed a disease in his feet.
1 Kings 15:24 Then Asa rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his ancestor David. His son Jehoshaphat became king in his place.

making the best

Just when you think things are never going to get better for this divided nation, king Asa appears. He makes attempts to defeat the idolatry that was destroying his people, and invests in the protection of Judah instead of its downfall. He was a hero among zeroes.

Thank you, LORD, for people like Asa, who make the best of trying times.

20240919

tempted to compromise

1 Kings 13:1-34 (JDV)

1 Kings 13:1 A man of God came, however, from Judah to Bethel by the word of Yahveh while Jeroboam was standing beside the altar to burn incense.
1 Kings 13:2 The man of God cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord: “Altar, altar, this is what Yahveh says, ‘A son will be born to the house of David, named Josiah, and he will sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who are burning incense on you. Human bones will be burned on you.'”
1 Kings 13:3 He gave a sign that day. He said, “This is the sign that Yahveh has spoken: ‘The altar will now be ripped apart, and the ashes that are on it will be poured out.'”
1 Kings 13:4 When the king heard the message that the man of God had cried out against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Arrest him!” But the hand he stretched out against him withered, and he could not pull it back to himself.
1 Kings 13:5 The altar was ripped apart, and the ashes poured from the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.
1 Kings 13:6 Then the king responded to the man of God, “Plead for the favor of Yahveh your God and pray for me so that my hand may be restored to me.” So, the man of God pleaded for the favor of the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored to him and became as it had been at first.
1 Kings 13:7 Then the king declared to the man of God, “Come home with me, refresh yourself, and I’ll give you a reward.”
1 Kings 13:8 But the man of God replied, “If you were to give me half your house, I still wouldn’t go with you, and I wouldn’t eat food or drink water in this place,
1 Kings 13:9 because this is what I was commanded by the word of the Lord: ‘You must not eat food or drink water or go back the way you came.'”
1 Kings 13:10 So he went another way; he did not go back by the way he had come to Bethel.
1 Kings 13:11 Now a certain old prophet was living in Bethel. His son came and told him all the deeds that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. His sons also told their father the words that he had spoken to the king.
1 Kings 13:12 Then their father asked them, “Which way did he go?” His sons had seen the way taken by the man of God who had come from Judah.
1 Kings 13:13 Then he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” So they saddled the donkey for him, and he got on it.
1 Kings 13:14 He followed the man of God and found him sitting under an oak tree. He asked him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” “I am,” he said.
1 Kings 13:15 Then he said to him, “Come home with me and eat some food.”
1 Kings 13:16 But he answered, “I cannot go back with you or accompany you; I will not eat food or drink water with you in this place.
1 Kings 13:17 For a message came to me by the word of the Lord: ‘You must not eat food or drink water there or go back by the way you came.'”
1 Kings 13:18 He said to him, “I am also a prophet like you. An angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord: ‘Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat food and drink water.'” The old prophet deceived him,
1 Kings 13:19 and the man of God went back with him, ate food in his house, and drank water.
1 Kings 13:20 While they were sitting at the table, the word of Yahveh came to the prophet who had brought him back,
1 Kings 13:21 and the prophet cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what Yahveh says: ‘Because you rebelled against Yahveh’s command and did not keep the command that Yahveh your God commanded you —
1 Kings 13:22 but you went back and ate food and drank water in the place that he said to you, “Do not eat food and do not drink water”– your corpse will never reach the grave of your fathers.'”
1 Kings 13:23 So after he had eaten food and after he had drunk, the old prophet saddled the donkey for the prophet he had brought back.
1 Kings 13:24 When he left, a lion attacked him along the way and killed him. His corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey was standing beside it; the lion was standing beside the corpse too.
1 Kings 13:25 There were men passing by who saw the corpse thrown on the road and the lion standing beside it, and they went and spoke about it in the city where the old prophet lived.
1 Kings 13:26 When the prophet who had brought him back from his way heard about it, he said, “He is the man of God who disobeyed Yahveh’s command. Yahveh has given him to the lion, and it has mauled and killed him, according to the word of Yahveh that he spoke to him.”
1 Kings 13:27 Then the old prophet instructed his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” They saddled it,
1 Kings 13:28 and he went and found the corpse thrown on the road with the donkey and the lion standing beside the corpse. The lion had not eaten the corpse or mauled the donkey.
1 Kings 13:29 So the prophet lifted the corpse of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back. The old prophet came into the city to mourn and to bury him.
1 Kings 13:30 Then he laid the corpse in his own grave, and they mourned over him: “Oh, my brother!”
1 Kings 13:31 After he had buried him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones,
1 Kings 13:32 for the message that he cried out by the word of Yahveh against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines of the high places in the cities of Samaria is certain to happen.”
1 Kings 13:33 Even after this, Jeroboam did not repent of his evil way but again made priests for the high places from the ranks of the people. He ordained whoever so desired it, and they became priests of the high places.
1 Kings 13:34 This was the sin that caused the house of Jeroboam to be made to disappear and be exterminated from the face of the land.

tempted to compromise

The prophet’s instructions from the LORD were designed to keep him from being corrupted by the inhabitants of Bethel and to reverse his prediction. So, the LORD commands him not to eat anything, and to return to Judah using a different route, not to retrace his steps. The prophet had no trouble standing up to Jeroboam, refusing to take his bribe. But his integrity failed him when lured by the prospect of fellowship with another prophet. In the end, he disobeys. In fact, the only creatures who remain obedient in this narrative are the lion and the loyal donkey. God’s specific commands are not gray areas.

LORD, help us to avoid putting ourselves in situations where we would be tempted to compromise.