When Ahaziah dies, his mother Athaliah put the entire royal
household to death. These would be her
family. She does this in order that she
might reign but one child, Joash, is secreted away by his aunt and kept
secretly, like Moses had been. For six years he was secretly kept alive until
the priest, Jehoiada, saw the timing was right to make this child king. Apparently Athaliah was quite unpopular, the
entire army comes to the aid of the boy king to protect him from his
grandmother's murderous intentions. The
crown is set on his head and he is anointed and accepted as king by the
people. Jehoiada, however, is the power
at this time, instructing the men to kill Athaliah and then renewing the
covenant between the people and Yahweh and the people and the king. Their response is to tear down the altars of
Baal and begin to restore the nation not only in word but in reality to the
covenant.
Where is your treasure?
Where we expend our effort, energy and passions provides the answer to
that question. If we examine our lives
to see how we spend our time, talent and treasure we will know the truth. Subjectively we can say one thing but our
lives tell the real story, they reveal the truth about what we treasure. Mastery is important. Cain was told that sin was crouching at the
door and he must master it but he failed and it mastered him. John tells us that the light is shining in
the darkness and the darkness has never mastered it, never completely
extinguished the light. Sometimes it
seems that the light is almost gone but we know that it never will be. Let us live today in such a way that our
lives display that light, even if we are the only one shining in the darkness.
Relationships have primacy in our lives. Paul is speaking to those who have been
converted to the faith. That conversion
makes us new creations and yet we already have lives. What to do then about them? Paul says that even if our spouses are
unconverted with us we are to remain married because God only knows the
future. He speaks the same way about
other things like circumcision or status.
All of our lives are meant to be used to glorify Him. He was not unaware of our situations when He
called us. Perhaps we are where He wants
us to be already but the more important thing is not where we are but who we
are. Who we are can be the catalyst for
change in everything and everyone else around us. It is just possible that He has you right
where He wants you not because it suits your interests but His. The only way to know is to ask Him how you
can glorify Him today right where you are.
Who knows what a difference you can make if God shines through you. Even a six year old king who had been hidden
away his entire life changed everything in the nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment