“Now all Judah, with their little ones, their wives, and their children, stood before the Lord.” 2 Chronicles 20:13
The Moabites and Ammonites have gathered for battle against Jehoshapat and his army. He has proclaimed a fast and gathered all the people together to seek the Lord. Jehoshapat prays a wonderful prayer of dependence, beseeching the Lord’s help. And then we come to this verse.
The solemnity of it struck me. It was almost as if I could see the scene, and the multitude standing there silently, having heard the king’s prayer. And now they wait for the Lord’s answer. It was a holy silence that needed nothing but to hear from Him. And He did not disappoint, but sent the promise of a great deliverance.
Often I find that my prayer times are filled with my words. I will pray until I run out of things to say and then assume that prayer is over. This is not communing with God. How can I be said to have a relationship with someone when the communication is always one sided? Life seems to always be in such high gear and there is always so much to do that it is hard to slow down and wait. But OH the reward of waiting is the joy of hearing from God. He does still speak to his people. We have just forgotten that we need to listen.
Lord, help me to develop this ability of holy listening. I desperately need to hear what You are saying.
Oh Lord speak, for Your servant is listening
Your slightest whisper is manna from heaven for my needy soul
What more could I ever need in this life
If only I can walk with You
My heart cries out “that I may know You!”
Expectantly I come and pray to You
I know that You are there – Jehovah Shammah
That name is so precious to me
For I can do without many things
But I must know that You are near
When my gaze is fixed upon my heavenly Master
Only then does life make sense
So Lord, please speak, for Your servant is listening.
The book of Malachi contains the final words of God to his people prior to the initiation of the New Covenant. It was a time of lukewarm spirituality and flagrant disregard for God by His people. But as much as we would like for God to be quiet and leave us alone in our backslidings, He is faithful to give warning.
The priesthood, for the most part, had become corrupted by a casual attitude towards the sacrifices God had established for His people. He had specifically outlined through Moses what was acceptable and what was not. In the book of Malachi, God contends with these priests over their failure to adequately perform their ministry.
One has to wonder how this deterioration had happened to the priesthood. How did they lose sight of the importance of their ministry?
Were they clueless? Had they neglected the Scriptures to the point that they had no understanding of what God required?
Were they careless? Had the priestly ministry become just a job for them, with no real understanding of the significance of what they were doing?
Were they calloused? Did they just not care about the things of God at all?
The Lord says to the priests, not the people in general, but the priests, “where is my honor?” And then He gives them this command – Honor My Name. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t beg. He commands.
He confronts their offering of blemished sacrifices, the weak and feeble of the flock. And He confronts this in us as well. Something is terribly wrong when we can offer God the leftovers of our life and be satisfied with that. Worse yet, when we think God is satisfied with that. We throw the leftover crumbs of our life to God and expect that He will be happy with whatever we give Him, like a pet, hoping for some scraps from the table.
Rather than our half-hearted offerings to Him, he prefers nothing.
“Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain!” Malachi 1:10
We trifle with a God who is a great King. Do we think He does not see? Do we think He does not know the very thoughts and intentions of our hearts when we give ourselves to other things and satisfy our conscience with the meager morsels of our lives that we throw to God?
May God make us aware of every way in which we have offered Him something less than our best and may we begin to take seriously the command to honor His name.
1 Kings 12:28 “Therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold, and said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt.”
Jeroboam knew he had no hereditary entitlement to the throne of Israel. And because he was insecure in his position as king over the 10 tribes of Israel, he feared that if the people went to Jerusalem to worship at the temple that they would turn back to following Rehoboam. The solution? Give the people something more convenient to worship and convince them that there is no need to do such a hard thing as travel to Jerusalem. Why go to all that bother when you can worship right here at home?
Listen to his words to the people: “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem.” Even though the temple in Jerusalem is where God said “I have consecrated this house which you have built to put My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.” (I Kings 9:3)
Jeroboam gave them a convenient alternative to real worship. And the people bought it and were led into idolatry which continued well beyond Jeroboam’s reign and eventually brought the judgment of God upon the nation.
I fear that we have not learned the lesson intended by this story. Still today there are those who preach a very convenient “Christianity”. There is no cross, there is no dying to self, there is no holiness, there is no Jesus.
Are we doomed to repeat the failures of the past? May God have mercy upon us and restore the real gospel of Jesus Christ to our churches. What a beautiful thing it would be to see altars flooded with those broken and repentant ones who will cry out, “Oh, that I may know Him!”
Please God, don’t let us be content to bow down to something convenient. Rescue us from the idolatry of our day.
Recently I spent some time on vacation. I spent hours and hours in prayer as I looked out onto the water. So peaceful and tranquil, calming to the soul. But sometimes a boat would pass at full speed, ignoring the “no wake zone” signs, and the water would be churned into a tumultuous froth, soon lapping at and spilling over the barriers along the shore.
As the Lord had been dealing with me for several days on the issue of disobedience and it’s destructive effects, the churning of the water seemed to mirror the troubled waters of a disobedient soul. Churning, surging against boundaries, restless and unsettled. There is no peace to a disobedient believer.
As I tearfully reflected on these things, to my shame I realized that my own disobedience exposed a lack of trust in the Lord and my lack of the fear of the Lord. It is no small matter to disobey the Lord of the entire universe and Master of my soul. The more I thought on these things, the more grievous it became to me, until I thought I would rather do anything than disobey Him. And I wondered why I had not cared more to do what pleased Him than what pleased me. Now I understood the unrest that I could not shake. I was living in the wake zone.
Psalm 23 says that He leads me beside the still waters. This is the blessing of a life of obedience. Still waters are for the obedient. All others will live in the wake zone, continually turbulent, disturbed and pounding against the boundaries.
The Lord has required obedience of His people, but He has made an obedient life to be a glorious, serene life. When we can learn to trust that all His ways are good, and higher than our ways, and that Romans 8:28 is always true, then we will be those who experience the still waters of an obedient life.
“…..for it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes….” Hosea 10:12
In my conversations with believers there is a sense of urgency in the days we are living in; a sense of seriousness and watchfulness; a sense of the need to seek the Lord like never before. To be sure, there are serious problems that our nation is facing that have affected many of us. It is probable that darker days lie ahead. Only God knows for sure.
But even greater than the needs in our nation are the needs in the church. Jesus has left us here to be a light in this darkened world. And if the light has become darkness, how great is the darkness.
So much of what is called the body of Christ seems to be interested in everything but Christ. We go about our lives, doing our thing, making a living and enjoying our lives. We stay so busy either with work or entertainment that we successfully quiet that still, small voice that tells us there is so much more to life than this. I’m afraid we have forgotten why we are here.
It is time to seek the Lord. Even if the world is scheduled to continue for another 500 years, it is time to seek the Lord. Today, right now, every day. We must seek Him and we must not stop until He comes; until He visits His people with His Presence.
Can you see the promise in this verse? He doesn’t say to seek Him and maybe He will come. He says seek Him till He comes. He will come if we will seek. My heart longs for this.
Jesus, we have forgotten You. We have gone to church faithfully, said our prayers and done our daily Bible readings. And we have missed You in all of it. Oh please come and give us a fresh revelation of Your glory. Move upon our hearts to seek You, and seek You and seek You until You come.
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” Hebrews 1:1-3
Sometimes the routineness of religious activity can dull my view of Jesus. I can get stuck in a rut, even though it is a really nice rut, of church attendance, Bible study and prayer meetings. But once I slow the pace a bit the question arises…..where is Jesus?
It is the mercy of God that He reveals to us when we have become content with the activities of religion and have lost sight of the Saviour. Even in the midst of our seeking after Him we can become more focused on the seeking than on Him.
So this is where I found myself as I sensed the Lord telling me “look unto Jesus.” So I started looking in Hebrews and these first few verses literally took my breath away as I saw the glory and power of Jesus Christ so overwhelmingly presented:
The glory that emanates from Him
The divinity of His person
His amazing power in the creation and continuance of all things
His completed work of redemption
His exalted heavenly position
This is our King. This is our Redeemer. This is our Friend.
“Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” Psalm 86:11 NIV
“Teach me your ways, O LORD, that I may live according to your truth! Grant me purity of heart, that I may honor you.” Psalm 86:11 NLT
This verse makes my heart soar! Yes God! This is what I want! Many times I have prayed something very similar in my time with God. I desperately desire these things – a pure and undivided heart, knowing His ways, the fear of the Lord, walking in His truth. Who of His children would not desire such wonderful things?
It is easy to feel quite holy when praying such a thing. But when the day comes that He begins answering this prayer with His refining fire, in that day the seriousness of our desire to walk with Him will be tested. When He requires those dearly loved Isaacs to be placed upon the altar, then the battle begins. And it is then that we see how divided our heart truly is.
What can cause more sorrow to a follower of Jesus than to see Judas lurking within their own heart? I cannot afford to pity Judas, but must ruthlessly drive him out of my heart.
Just like Jesus said to the rich, young ruler “sell all…and come, follow Me”, He says the same to me. He wants all of my heart. What soldier can be trusted in battle who has divided loyalty? What husband can be trusted who has a roving eye? We expect loyalty from others, and do we think Jesus requires anything less?
The purifying of a heart is painful. If we don’t have a burning desire to walk closely with God, we will not endure the process. But if we continue with God, He will grant us more grace, and more grace, and still more grace, to be able to endure the refining. It will still be painful, but we will be able to see past the pain, looking to the joy that lies before us of a closer fellowship with Him.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
He is my Delight 