I feel like God has been repeating Himself to me a lot lately.
Seek Me. Seek My face. Don't get so caught up in what you're building that you forget Me. Don't confuse the place where you met Me with Me. Don't just talk about My presence live like you've been in it.
And here we are again.
Maybe God keeps repeating it because He knows how quickly we forget. Or maybe He knows how quickly I forget.
Rehoboam's story begins with everything falling apart. The kingdom has split, and his first response is to gather 180,000 men and fight to get back what he lost. I understand that response more than I'd like to admit.
When something starts falling apart, my first instinct is usually to figure out how to fix it. I can't help it. Im a fixer by nature. What can I do? Who do I need to talk to? How do I put this back together?
But God tells Rehoboam not to fight. In fact, He tells him, “This thing is from Me.” And Rehoboam listens.
I thought alot about that and realized that sometimes I'm asking God to help me put something back together while He's asking me to trust Him enough to leave it alone.
Sometimes stepping out in faith looks like fighting a battle, but sometimes it's about accepting that God is doing something I don't completely understand and releasing my need to fix it. And that is hard to do.
After Rehoboam obeys, things begin going well. Judah grows stronger, and priests, Levites, and people from the other tribes come to Jerusalem. Scripture describes them as people who had “set their hearts on seeking the Lord.”
That phrase stood out to me.
They set their hearts.
There was intention behind it. They decided where their hearts were going to be pointed.
And then chapter 12 gives us the contrast.
Once Rehoboam's position was established and he became strong again, he turned away from the law of the Lord.
Did you catch that. When everything was falling apart, he listened to God. But once everything became all good and he felt strong again, he stopped depending on Him.
And there it is right there.
Because I know how to seek God when I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. When I'm scared, hurting, overwhelmed, or desperate, it's pretty easy to say, “Jesus, I can't do this without You.” But then He brings me through it and the thing that once terrified me becomes familiar. The prayer gets answered my life settles down and I learn how to handle what once felt impossible.
And somewhere along the way, if I'm not careful, God, I can't do this without You becomes Okay, I think I've got this. Weakness isn't always the dangerous place.Sometimes it's our own strength.
I know I'm weak, I know I need Him. It's when I start feeling capable that I can forget Who got me there. And that's when Rehoboam's story gets really interesting. Egypt attacks Jerusalem, and Shishak carries away the treasures from the temple and palace, including Solomon's gold shields.
So Rehoboam replaces them With bronze.
No big deal right, bronze can shine too. Polish it enough and, from a distance, maybe nobody will notice the difference. The guards still have shields. The procession can continue. Everything can still look like it's supposed to look.
But Rehoboam knew.
Gold had been lost, and bronze was standing in its place.
How often do we do the same thing spiritually.
Something has changed in our relationship with God, but instead of dealing with it, we learn how to keep everything looking normal.
We still show up. We still serve. We still know the songs and the Scriptures. We still say the right things. We can keep doing all the things we've always done because we've done them long enough to know how.
We just keep polishing the bronze.
And that one hits close to home for me because I'm in ministry. I write devotions. I study Scripture. I pray for people. I serve and teach.
I can spend my entire day surrounded by things about God and still have to ask myself whether I'm actually spending time with God or just polishing my bronze.
Ministry cannot become my bronze replacement for real relationship with Jesus.
Neither can church.
Neither can serving.
Neither can writing these devotions.
I don't want to become so good at doing things that look like gold that I stop noticing when something inside me has changed.
Near the end of chapter 12, Chronicles gives us the diagnosis of Rehoboam's life, it says He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord.And suddenly we're right back where we started.
Some people in chapter 11 set their hearts on seeking God. Rehoboam didn't. And It wasn't that Rehoboam never had a moment with God. He did. He listened sometimes. He humbled himself when judgment came, and God showed him mercy. But seeking God wasn't the settled direction of his heart. Oooh...we can have a moment with God and still not truly know him.
And after everything we've been reading lately I that's what God keeps trying to get through to us. It's not enough that we sought Him yesterday. It's not enough that we had an incredible encounter with Him years ago.
It's not enough that we know how to do ministry or talk about Jesus.
Where are our hearts set today?
I don't want Jesus to be the One I desperately seek when everything falls apart and slowly forget when everything gets better.
I don't want to need a crisis in my life to make me hungry for God. And I definitely don't want to live on yesterday's gold while polishing today's bronze.
I want to need Him when I'm struggling, and I want need Him when I'm thriving. I want to need Him when I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, and I want still need him when I feel like I've finally figured things out. Especially then!
I'm realizing I don't just want a life that looks like I've been in His presence.I want a heart that stays there. And I hope and pray you are realizing that too.
Love Pastor Mandy
MandiesDandies / Ark of Hope
Daily reading 2 Chronicles 11-12
Add comment
Comments