When God moves man...

Background: In Israel, kings came and kings went, some were good, some weren't. Samaria lost its land and stand before the Lord, due to their disobedience as they chose to worship gods rather than the One True Living God who had brought them up out of Egypt. They chose death, rather than life. Jerusalem on the other hand, stood strong a little while longer, but soon saw kings who would lead them down the same road, Samaria had taken, into forfeiting their inheritance and land God has promised them. The book of 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, give a detailed history of Israel, their acquiring their promised land and then forfeiting it "15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. 16 But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. "

Lessons: While reading of the way Israel had lost its glorious walk with the Lord and its glorious inheritance, I noticed some very important things about how and why God works in our lives

1. Man's heart constantly seeks to do evil, knowingly and unknowingly-God had seen this behaviour in man, from the beginning of creation-Genesis 6:5 "The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time."-Evil begat evil and it went on.
2. God seeks to move man, to enable them to do the good works He has planned for us-Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." and also in Philippians 2:13 "for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." Among all the accounts of kings I read through in 1 st & 2nd Kings and 1st &2nd Chronicles, I found God had seen and known how satan had diluted our minds with evil and God wanted to bring us back to the original image in which we were created, to do good.
3. The choice is with us-Every time, God moved man, He left the choice with man, to either go God's way or go your own selfish way. I call man's own way as selfish because, rarely now does man think of someone else when they are working towards something. I will earn this degree I will get a good job, have a good house, have lots of money, I will take care of my kids. Rarely do we think, I will pay for that man on that road, to go to college, have a good life, it doesn't matter what happens to me!!! I don't and I dont think others do too, unless, their hearts have been moved by God. The choice still remains with us, to be moved and be movers of lives into the Kingdom of God, or just get by life with the minimum we think we can do.

Conclusion-What if Noah, had not listened to God's voice about the flood that day? What if Abraham had not been moved by God's promise of his own land and generations to come? What if you and I heard God's voice regarding our lives and were moved?

Cleanup and See God Work

Sometimes our lives pile up with incidents, hurts, words accumulated from so many years of life on earth and people we come across. If we had had encouragers to meet, all our lives, we would all be achievers of amazing feats, but its not always that way in reality. Words that we hear from people around us, looks that we get from them, sometimes, (in case of elders or parents or government) actions that they take, impact our lives as well. They choke our growth in the Lord and we are blinded from seeing God's work or experiencing His power in our lives. Those thoughts, those, decisions made by someone else long ago, even seem to try to take control of the very decisions we make. For example, if a child is constantly told he's not good at singing, that child will never even attempt singing(by his own decision, becuase he was told to believe he could not), even though he/she may have the most amazing voice.

Here's another king of Judah named Josiah(2 Kings 22-23 ,2 Chronicles 34-35) , he did some major cleanup in Jerusalem, because he desired to follow God. The kings that had preceded him(Manasseh and Amon), had turned away from the little good that Hezekiah had done for Jerusalem. The Word of God records the following about Josiah "2 Kings 23:25Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses."

Lessons I learnt

• Begin seeking the Lord-v3 In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David.
• Started purging all the idols from the temple of God- v3 In his twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles, carved idols and cast images. In our hearts we might have set up someone as an idol(meaning-any person or thing regarded with blind admiration, adoration, or devotion)Someone or something we are devoted to, and that idol is taking up space, instead of God and this is destroying our life, whether we know it or not. We need to ask God to help us identify these idols and remove them. This does not mean, we become disrespectful to the ones who are in authority over us. We can ask God to guide our supervisors, that they may make the right decisions, especially when the decisions are going to affect us and we realise that. Sometimes this idol could be ourselves too.
• Started purifying it, by building the temple of the Lord-v8 In the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, to purify the land and the temple, he sent Shaphan son of Azaliah and Maaseiah the ruler of the city, with Joah son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the temple of the LORD his God. Merely removing the idol is not enough, we've got to set our life with the right stuff, it need to be built. Like, a strong word of correction is good, but we also need to give words of encouragement that the person may be built up in the right direction.
• Humbled himself to receive God's Word-v14 In the process of cleansing and building, they found the book of law and it was read to King Josiah, he immediately tore his robes realising how terribly, far they had moved from the Law of God and sought God's direction immediately
• He opened way , through his humility and obedience, for God's Work in Jerusalem and his life-"27 Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD. " Its not that God does not hear our cries, the Word of God says, in Isaiah 59:1-3 "1 Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
• Renewed God's Covenant-"3 The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the LORD -to follow the LORD and keep his commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant. "

Conclusion: "33 Josiah removed all the detestable idols from all the territory belonging to the Israelites, and he had all who were present in Israel serve the LORD their God. As long as he lived, they did not fail to follow the LORD, the God of their fathers." Josiah, had caused such a change in the people during his reign, that in spite of, wayward rulers who had misguided them, led them astray and made them worship idols, the people stuck to following God. Oh.. if there were more kings who would have stuck onto Josiah's commitment, Israel could have seen the power of God like in times of Abraham, Isaac, Moses and all.

I strongly think, the way God works His plan for our lives is, in partnership with us. It is possible for God to work without us, but He made us in His image to have fellowship, friendship and partnership. Remember, before Jesus came, there had to be done something, so we could be prepared for His arrival-John the baptist preached" Matthew 3:3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: "A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.' "

Don't Stop Running the Good Race

Background: 2 Kings 14:1-21, talks about a story from the life of a king named Ahaziah. He did what was right and followed God, though not wholeheartedly. He did some nice things during his reign, but made one grave mistake. I take details of his life from 2 Chronicles 25( since it has a detailed account of his works).

Lessons from the mistakes of king Amaziah

1. A good start of reign- "3 After the kingdom was firmly in his control, he executed the officials who had murdered his father the king. 4 Yet he did not put their sons to death, but acted in accordance with what is written in the Law," He tried to keep the law of God.
2. Followed or listened to God's prophet-"7 But a man of God came to him and said, "O king, these troops from Israel must not march with you, for the Lord is not with Israel--not with any of the people of Ephraim. 8 Even if you go and fight courageously in battle, God will overthrow you before the enemy, for God has the power to help or to overthrow." When Amaziah was planning for the battle at Edom, he has hired some Israelites to be in his army, but a word came through a prophet of God saying he shouldn't take them with him else he'd lose.
3. Diluted motivation for obeying God-No doubt he listened to the man of God, but now his motive had been diluted by greed. He weighed the question about how he could get the money back, which he had paid to get those Israelite soldier, "9 Amaziah asked the man of God, "But what about the hundred talents I paid for these Israelite troops?" The man of God replied, "The Lord can give you much more than that." and Amaziah sent the Israelite troops back, not because, now he was being obedient, he was being obedient, because he was waiting to get something in response. His motivation so easily swayed right away from obedience to reward zone membership!!!
4. Pride and foolishness- I think the easy win, got to his head and "14 When Amaziah returned from slaughtering the Edomites, he brought back the gods of the people of Seir. He set them up as his own gods, bowed down to them and burned sacrifices to them." Can you see that? He forgot who had given him victory and immediately turned to gods who weren't even gods.Moreover, in his arrogance and defiance, he threatened the man of God who had guided him through good counsel from God.

Conclusion: He started well, he kept the law laid long ago, but he fell right at the very first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" . He allowed pride to take the best of him. Sometimes we stop at one big move of God and want to make camp there, making that moment a shrine, rather than knowing the God who did it. This man was so blinded by the achievement he had found through God he forgot God was behind it all the while, in spite of having heard from God's prophet. I asked myself, do I love God the way I do, for something I need from Him, or because He is God and He loved me first and I am simply reciprocating His love for me?? How about you? Let's not give up the motivation of Jesus our Lord's love for me.

Galatians 5:7 "You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?"