The word is not explicitly used here, but what is being spoken of could be best characterized as “endurance”. This is a highly touted quality throughout the whole of God’s Word but given little attention in an age when technology and services are expected to be delivered instamatically. God provides no guarantees that there will never be problems, trials, or hardships in life, only that He will be faithful to see us through them.
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I suppose it’s due at least in part to being an aggressive male raised in the American way of doing things, but my initial urge is to be a go-getter. I usually think first about taking on the challenge, meeting the problem head on, not being afraid to take the bull by the horns. My first thoughts are usually about how best to go out and engage whatever issue is looming on the horizon. But have you ever noticed how often the Bible speaks in terms of standing fast?
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Hezekiah makes a very interesting appeal to the remnant of God’s people left in Judah who Hezekiah is calling back to the Lord. He states that returning to God’s Word and ways is not only beneficial for the each individual so doing, but that it will have the same kind of effect on God’s people belonging to the northern kingdom of Israel who have already been carried away into captivity. In other words, personal faithfulness is not just something whose effects are limited solely to each individual, but provide something tangible for fellow believers as well. I don’t think we seriously consider that when we succeed or fail in our spiritual relationship with Christ that the benefits or detriments are not limited exclusively to just us alone.
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In Hezekiah’s time the problem he faced wasn’t simply that God’s people were not worshiping and serving God according to biblical standards, the problem is they came to a point where they were not serving at all! The priests and Levites ceased working, worship and service activities stopped, and ultimately the whole thing was just closed down completely. There was no way to worship and serve the One True God as dictated by His Word because they weren’t merely unfaithful to His Word, but “have forsaken Him and turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and have turned their backs“. I just can’t help seeing that to a large degree this is happening again today where people are not simply going to a church with “lower standards”, but something so closed off that it is impossible to serve and worship at even the most fundamental level.
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There is a very strange argument which I can now see is as old as time itself and goes something like this: “I know I’m sinning but look at him, look at what he’s doing; he’s much worse than me“. I have always been perplexed by the rationalization that no one is permitted to point out a sin or weakness on the basis that there are others in the immediate vicinity with sin and weakness of their own. I suppose it reveals that there is a basic deception in force that renders the bearer blind to the repeated biblical teaching that each will be judged individually and not exempted from the consequences just because others have been doing the same or worse.
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Here is a verse you just never see quoted by the Faith-Prosperity people who love to pull Old Testament verses out of context in their claims of a guarantee of material wealth in this life. Jotham’s accomplishment aren’t attributed to some kind of Word-Faith formula but “because he ordered his ways“. There are many people in the Bible whom God blessed materially, but none of which were not first and foremost committed to ordering their ways before Him. Spiritual faithfulness is always priority one with such biblical role models. But this simple verse also raises the issue of what, exactly, is our plan? What are we setting out to accomplish when it comes to a personal relationship with Christ?
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One of the things we can learn by studying the 20 individuals who sat on the throne of the southern kingdom of Judah is what they tell us about various kinds of spiritual leaders we may encounter within the church. A few seem hopelessly bad from beginning to end, a few lead God’s people into legitimate revival, but most of them seem to struggle in their personal lives much the same way every believer struggles. What causes a good leader to fall who has built a great movement or organization to the Lord and whose overall track record was (at one time) listening to the Word of God through those sent by Him? Pride. Even in our time there have been many a good leader who began right but ended badly because of personal pride.
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