118 "Personal Holiness Over Effective Management" 1 Kings 16-18

118 For all that is dead in our lives, may we hear God's voice saying: Come Alive. Make your priority concern personal holiness over effective management.                                           

                                                                   

1 Kings 16:26 

Empty-headed, empty-hearted lives...not true hearted.  Oh! to be truehearted!  The lessons to be learned from these wicked men:  "Leadership without a priority concern for personal holiness over effective management at best produces only outward success.  It fails to engage the real battle in the human soul, between losing your life for Me or gaining your life without Me." 66 LL.  
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I love the story in I Kings of Elijah meeting a woman whose son died.  I cannot imagine what she was going through.  Elijah lies on top of the boy and asks God "Why have you brought this terrible thing on this widow...why have you killed her son?"  It's so amazing to me that God responds to our requests.  We can ask for the impossible.  God had already told this widow that her jars of flour will not run out and the bottle of oil never empty until she needs it no more.  The woman hung on tight to her life lessson, close to her bosom.  Elijah took the widow's only son and asked God to put breath back into the boy.  God did!  And this mom's response:  "you're a holy man, Elijah."  For all that is dead in our lives, may we hear God's voice.  Come alive!

PHOTO:  Be truehearted twins! The real battle of life is within your soul. 

117 - "Tell Me My Fortune Rather Than My Faults" 1 Kings 14-15

King Jeroboam, full of contempt. 

A dad with a dying child. 

Disguises his wife and sends her to the blind prophet. 

"Will my child die or live"? 

Wait. 

What about this---what about saying: 

How could I help my child, dear man of God? 

Will you pray for my child, dear man of God?

How could I deal with my own heart as I sit in a lonely frigid dark chamber?  

"It would have been more pious if he had desired to know where God contended with him.

It would have been more pious if he had begged the prophet’s prayers, 

more pious if he had cast away his idols.

Maybe the child might have been restored to him---as his hand was. 

Some people would rather be told their good fortune rather than their faults or their duty." 

I Kings 14:4

PHOTO: 2-year-old tiny twins with a future ahead of them. We will pray for you. Walk humbly into your duty. Deal with your own hearts always.                                                                                                      We will help you and pray you find God on your path. May those closest to you tell you the truth.

116 - "Look After Your Own House" 1 Kings 12-13

 

 Look after your own house. I Kings 12:16

The theme of today's reading drives me 'back home' to the place where we should work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.  It is when kings and paupers are not in the places where they should be.  It is when kings and paupers long for what they have not.  We are not in charge of any of this.  Just subordinates living for a King and a future world.  Just passing through here.  Leaving our mark be it success or silence.  Taking care of our own business.  Letting ambition go.  Living for another country.

The people listened to the Word of the Lord.  I Kings 12:24. But then, this son of Solomon, put a greater yoke on the people.  

The kings listened to the Lord until it didn't work for them.

Oh that I may truly know a little deeper that I am living for another country, another kingdom.  I am far too entrenched in what I see and touch and hear and feel.  God, please move in my own life.  Help me take my eye off of what I see; what I want.  Help me to look after my own house.  Amen.

PHOTO:  No eye has seen.  No ear has heard.  Never entered our minds.  All You have for us!  Look at this! So intricate.  Photo Cred:  Commons 

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.

114 - "No One Is Out Of His Reach" 1 Kings 8-9

143 No one is out of His Reach. We cannot escape the Eyes and Heart of God. #talkingtomyself

It's a Grand House.

The Berth and Beauty still holds a judgment.

Day and Night God's Eyes watch His Temple.

These words of ours are near to Him night and day.  

Never a Moment gone by that God was not hovering watching.

"There is no God like You, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart."  I Kings 8:23.

This happened scores of years ago.

But Solomon is speaking to us today I Kings 8:57-58.

May The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us, that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers. 

So, God, let these words of mine be near to You, our God, Day and Night.

God hears Solomon's prayer and responds: "I have consecrated this House" in I Kings 9:3. Only God can make a place holy. Only God can make our hearts holy. Living temples. He puts His Name, His Eyes, His Heart there perpetually. How beautiful is that to know this day.

And Solomon, "If you will walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and uprightness, then I will establish your throne." I Kings 9:4. God knew. He perceived. He saw Solomon's heart.

And we know the rest of the story that Solomon would not repent (like his father did) of what is drawing him away from God---the love of this life. His father, David, broke in half when confronted with his sins...and David repented with great sorrow over the wrongs done before a Holy God. David did not live in guilt although forgiveness never took away David being a murderer, an adulterer. Forgiveness took away David's sentence, his guilt.

This "house is high"---I Kings 9:9--- but not out of reach of the Judgment of God. We will all give account. No one is out of His Reach. The grandeur, the splendor, the beauty cannot save the day. C.S. Lewis once said that prostitutes see a little more clearly, more quickly, than the proud and the mighty, the arrogant. Was Solomon full of himself? Am I? What's my bent? Bent on doing what I want to do. Bent on living like I want to live. Bent on being what I think is right.

PHOTO:  Night falls this night.  Night and Day.  God watches.  Be near to Me, O Word of God,              Night and Day.We cannot escape the Eyes, the Heart of the God Who is and is to come.

113 - "Don't Mistake Notoriety for Spiritual Progress" 1 Kings 5-7

#113 The fabric of the Temple was all built in silence. No hammers. No chisels. No iron tools. it Rose like an "exaltation"---so we too live our lives in quiet and confidence. 

The Temple was built in silence. 
No hammers | No chisels | No iron tools were heard.

I Kings 6:7.
It rose like an "exhalation," says one commentary.

"No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung.
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung." Reginald Heber

The fabric rose in silence in the Old Testament. I Kings 6:7.

The fabric of the Sanctuary - roof, walls, floor. 
The fabric tugged in silence in the New Testament. Mark 5:27.

The fabric of the Savior Himself - his robe. 

We are to live out our lives in quietness and in confidence. Isaiah 30:15.
Thy Kingdom Come. 

Never an Observer. Always a Participator.

But that still small Voice.
The One we hear behind us, saying, this is the way. Walk in it.

And the commentary speaks to me:  "Don't mistake notoriety for spiritual progress."                                  The Kingdom went unnoticed by the Caesars and the philosophers of the day.                                                       The commentator said it grew silently like a baby in the womb, unheard, unnoticed, unknown.                   But this New Kingdom.  

Changes people 

in degrees, 

radically, 

publicly, 

inches. 

This new humanity was not so sudden.

“Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you." No better thought. No better plan.

PHOTO:  I have tugged at His fabric for as long as I can remember.  Even as a Catholic school girl.  Sacred Heart was my first invitation to the Savior.  But the real tug came when I was in my junior year at LSU and wild as the winds of a tornado.  I knew there had to be more.  A whole lot more than what I was experiencing.  And I found Him. And I turned to a whole new life. And I raised up a generation of kids offering them the Truth I found. Trying to live it out my troubled past before them every day. This is a grandkid.

112 - "This One Thing Makes Me Fall" 1 Kings 3-4

He loved the LORD, only this...
Can it be said of us. Only but this one thing. I Kings 3:3.

Let's lay aside that "only" one thing and run the race before us.

Solomon knew that God showed great favor to his father, David.

"Ask what I shall give you."  I Kings 3:5.
"Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” I Kings 3:9

This pleased the LORD that Solomon didn't ask for himself but for his calling. 
May this very day, we see through what "only" we can do.

And David ends with a prayer for Solomon. Psalm 72:6. May he be like rain falling on the fresh mown grass. An answer to the drought in so many lives.  

Father, cause us to live like rain failling on a parched land.  Empower us today with the Energy that stirs so powerfully within.

PHOTO:  It's rain.  Falling in the Hill Country.  Let Him fall all over me. 

111 - "When Your Desire to Succeed is Greater Than Your Desire To Be Holy" 1 Kings 1-2

                                                                    

Do not fret because of those who are wrong. Do not envy those who do wrong. Because. Like the grass, they will soon wither one day. Psalm 37:2. Trust in the Lord and do good.

Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Trust in Him and He will do this. Psalm 37:3, This is a sermon, says the commentaries, 'calculated not for our devotion, but for our conversation." It is Maschil---a teaching psalm. Fall Forward in Faith. No matter how bleak. No matter how black. It shall be "well with the soul of those who fear God." 

Last words: Be Strong. Show what you are made of. Do what God tells you. Keep an eye out for the signposts.

I Kings 2:1-4  When David's time to die approached, he charged his son Solomon, saying, "I'm about to go the way of all the earth, but you—be strong; show what you're made of! Do what God tells you. Walk in the paths he shows you: Follow the life-map absolutely, keep an eye out for the signposts, his course for life set out in the revelation to Moses; then you'll get on well in whatever you do and wherever you go." 

Last words make you so want to listen to what they have to say about real life. No formulas from David, just beautiful rhetoric from a man who lived a dangerous, courageous life with a heart for God. I wonder what David thinks at the end of his life about his failures to trust God.  

66LL says about this book of I Kings: "Your desire to be effectiver, to depend on biblical principles for success in your family, church, career, and friendships is legitimately strong." Okay, stop right there.  I would say that my Christian life was spent depending on biblical principles and it was legitimately strong. 

But.... keep reading this:  "But when that desire is stronger than your desire to be holy and to depend on My power for becoming more like My Son, whether you succeed or fail in other ways, then you will not advance my plan...." 

Okay, that makes me so want to stop and evaluate. I think there was sin in my life---distance from people, jealousy over other's success, being so hard on myself I was really unkind to myself, and the laundry list goes on...---my heaviest point is that there was relational sin I overlooked all the time cause I couldn't straighten it out with my family or friends.......... nor could I walk out or walk away from the relationships I was in.  I never really took a look at how I came across to people nor did people really tell me. I was more focused on how they treated me.  I thought everything in life was okay until 18 years ago when I hit a crisis I couldn't overcome. The Great Divide. I hadn't been naming my evil.  Really didn't know how.  I was more interested in succeeding and I was in most ways. I've been an overcomer my whole life.  But success is not the signpost that everything is all right.  "Success is not greatness."

110 - "God Speaks Words Into David" 2 Samuel 23-24

We all live with ourselves.
We really know what we are like, what we think, what we do.

And we have a glimpse from this book of the things David did.
Evil.  Wicked.  And some Glorious.
David was self-aware of what his sins were.  He took ownership of the stormy seas.
He threw out an Anchor for his soul.  We waddled and waded through the mire, the quicksand.

And it was the Word of God breathed into David that he spoke.
2 Samuel 23:2. 
They knew that it was not their minds conjuring up great advice to give away.
These are God's Thoughts that David writes.
“The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me;
his word is on my tongue.
The God of Israel has spoken;
David dawns on them like the morning light,
like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning,
like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth."
The Word of God has spoken.

And His Word still speaks today.  To you.  To me.
God speaks by me. 

PHOTO:  The Quarries Lake.  It's a silent spot I go to often to listen to God's Word. This lake has heard all of your names, all of my secrets, all of my cries.  

109 - "Man's Greatness and Wretchedness" 2 Samuel 21-22

Royal Ruin ... Not Much Left

From the Wretchedness in David's Life to ... 

A Brand New Chapter Every Day of a Glorious Ruin

David fainted but he didn't flee from his battle with the Philistines.  He was a noble man with flaws just like you and me.  But this time, he didn't run away from what was in front of him.  II Samuel 21:15.  "Man's greatness and wretchedness are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us that there is in man some great principle of greatness and some great principle of wretchedness."  Paschal.  Paschal's take allowed for both wretchedness and glory in the truth and rationality of Christianity.  "Rumors of glory" (Cockburn) are in all of us.  What stirs deep within our center?  Fierce words like in II Samuel 19:43?  Soft answers like in Proverbs 15:1?  We are all defaced in some way but never erased.  Within our origin is Divine Glory.  May we deal with this present moment and allow God to make us into the men and women He has called us to be.  For His Name's Sake.

The historian draws his conclusion of David's reign. It is David's weighty words as he ends his life on earth--- and they are spoken by inspiration. And he refers to his seed who will live forevermore. 

David settles the crown on Solomon's head;                                                                                                  he settles his treasures upon the temple which was to be built by the next king.                                     Here. Worthy words to be remembered to this very day. His house is right with God. He was raised up on high to see further than his neighbors.  

PHOTO: Not Much Left.