Posts
Hezekiah knew the right
thing to do. He had to dismantle
everything that his dad had done wrong and make things right. Each time I read these chapters, I see a correspondence
with what we read in the New Testament about our bodies being a temple:
29:3 – Hezekiah opened the doors of the Temple and repaired
them. We must open the doors we have shut in our hearts, oil the hinges,
and make sure our hearts are accessible to God.
29:5-8 – He said, “Remove from the Temple everything that
makes it impure. Our ancestors were
unfaithful to God … They left the
Lord … They rejected him … They shut
the doors … the let the fire go out…” We have to remove from our lives everything that makes them impure. We have to open the doors to our hearts.
If the fire has gone out, we’ve
got to strike a match and set it alight again.
29:9-11 – Hezekiah decided
to make an agreement with the Lord. He
said, “My sons, don’t waste any more time.
The Lord chose you to stand
before Him, to serve Him, to be His
servants…” Often we forget, because of
sin, that God chose us and opened
our hearts. When we willfully shut our
hearts, we often fail to remember how much He love us in the beginning, when we
were His enemies, choosing us anyway. If we have become His enemies again, there is already precedent for
coming back to Him. It’s our move.
29:15-20 – They took out the unclean things they found in
the Temple and we must do the same,
with no regret for their loss. For 16 days they celebrated their new cleanness. They also put back the tools used for
cleansing the temple. We too have tools
for our own cleansing – Bible study, accountability partners, internet filters,
etc.
29:29-31 – “When the sacrifices
were completed King Hezekiah and everyone with him bowed down and worshiped.” For us today, we can’t worship properly while
still being influenced by our old lifestyles.
We too must sacrifice our old
ways and then worship God with thankfulness for giving us the strength to do
so.
30:1-5 – They’d missed the Passover Day, but they celebrated
it a month later once everything was properly in place. We too don’t have to meet deadlines and try
to force worship when we aren’t yet ready.
God will honor our worship when our hearts are directed to Him.
30: 6-9 “Return to
the Lord … don’t be like your ancestors… don’t be stubborn … obey the Lord willingly … serve the Lord your God …
come back to the Lord … The Lord your God is kind and merciful. He will
not turn away from you if you return to Him.” In other words, break the chain. Don’t do
what you’ve always done or what your family has always done. Stubbornness needs to go. Willingness to let God work needs to replace
it.
30:10-15 – “The messengers went to every town … but the
people laughed at them and made fun of them.
But some men … were sorry for what they had done and went
to Jerusalem.” Yes, those around us who
delight in sin will try to make fun of the changes we want to make. They
are acting like boys. But men examine their hearts and make the
changes needed.
Father, I see in this a desire by many guys to not want to leave the kings of boyhood
and take on the responsibilities of manhood.
They don’t want to do the
hard things. Where would our nation be if our soldiers and sailors
failed to do this? God, please help my
sons and others I love to see this
happening in their own lives and to do
the hard things that will let them remove from their bodily temples the idols
of boyhood. Produce in them what they
need to become men of God.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
No comments:
Post a Comment