115 - "Effective Management Trumped Holiness" 1 Kings 10-11

115 Solomon may have been the wisest person to ever live but he wasn't holy. "Effective Management trumped holiness."L. Crabb 

                                                              

Solomon, one of the wisest men to ever live, the one who people all over the world came to speak with, the one with 700 foreign wives and 300 concubines.  How could that be?  And the Word says that the women led him astray.  That's a lot of influence on one man.  How could he even remember their names?  1,000 names.  Now, who are you again?  And he built high places to detestable gods.  Oh my.  And God replies in I Kings 11:11 --- "since this is your attitude, and you have not kept your covenant, I will tear your kingdom away from you..."  How could this happen in the midst of infinitesimal wisdom?  What about in my own life?

IKings 11: 9-10  "God was furious with Solomon for abandoning the God of Israel, the God who had twice appeared to him and had so clearly commanded him not to fool around with other gods. Solomon faithlessly disobeyed God's orders."  Solomon was obsessed with women and power and managing his kingdom. Maybe Solomon had wisdom, but he wasn't holy.  66LL "Effective management trumped holiness." God never intended for us to be obsessed with anything but Him!  We all deal with the depravity of man. Every one of us is obsessed with something or another person at different times. Yet, He is knocking on the door of our hearts, Rev. 3:19-20, offering us this moment an opportunity for Him to come in and fellowship with us as we repent from our lives "curved in on ourselves."  

Every day we move to live and love either self-obsessed or God obsessed!                                                

He is always about the beauty of detaching us from anything that we have come to depend on for our life, our joy, our peace.  

He is attaching us to Himself if we don't abandon Him in our minds, our motives, our management.  He is freeing us up from demandingness and that's so good!  When we made our big move to Austin, a friend gave me a "Me & Ro" necklace that is inscribed with the word "fearless."  It's from Phil 1:20 in the Moffat version.  It's my prayer for you this day.  My hope is that you not feel ashamed but that you may honor your Christ in your own person with "fearless courage."

One Day, the heavens and earth will pass away.  

White-hot stars will melt to a crisp, 

the stunning shimmering sun will melt forever. 

And it will happen in a blink. 

Another lovely generation of generations passes away.  

PHOTO: The sunrise over our heads today as generations pass on.