thought of the day

After the death of Jehoiada, the officials of Judah came and paid homage to the king, and he listened to them. They abandoned the temple of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and worshiped Asherah poles and idols. Because of their guilt, God’s anger came upon Judah and Jerusalem. Although the Lord sent prophets to the people to bring them back to him, and though they testified against them, they would not listen. 2 Chronicles 24:17-19

Jehoiada was the “spiritual father” of Joash. Once he died, Joash was approached by the officials of Judah. It says in the text that they paid homage to the king and he listened. If Joash would not have listened the trouble that comes the way of Judah could have been avoided.

I think this short passage of scripture is rich with insight for our daily lives. So what can we learn… One, if our children’s spiritual walk (whether they are biological children or new believer’s God has placed under our care) is dependent on us, as soon as we are gone, they will “listen” to the advice of the world. We need to make sure that we are always allowing them to mature in the things of the Lord. How do we allow that? We offer guidance and advice and then get out of the way. We cannot make every decision for them and we cannot allow them to make sorry excuses for bad decisions. They must learn to choose and reap the consequences of their own choices.

Two, we need to learn to discern between sincere compliments and mere flattery. I am always weary of people who come to me with alot of honey. You know the kind, they want to butter you up before they move in for the kill. We need to have a right assessment of ourselves through God’s eyes. There was only one perfect man and that was Jesus. Our good actions should point people to Him. Don’t be led astray by people who will say anything to get what they want.

Three, don’t let anyone ever lead you to abandon the temple of the Lord and worship to Him. Sometimes we become distracted by relationships and think that if we miss church one time there will not be any consequences. The problem comes, that if we are willing to miss out once to spend more time with the person, we will continue to miss. Our relationship with that person might grow but our most important relationship, our relationship with God will grow cold and, unless we repent, we will grow stale.

Finally, we need to listen to those godly people that God sends our way. God uses people to speak the truth to us. If we will listen it will save us much heartache.

the Word for today

Bible in a Year
John 16:4-33
2 Chronicles 24
Psalms 81