2 Kings 2

This is a pretty well known story.  But, as I read thru it, I was surprised that the taking of Elijah up to heaven is actually a very small portion of the entire story. Interesting.
15 The company of the prophets from Jericho, who were watching, said, “The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.” And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. 
They are missing it!  They are bowing down to Elisha....when the power is coming from God.  They should be worshiping God, not the vessel.

that's it nothing grand or life changing today.

tp

2 Kings 1

8 They replied, “He had a garment of hair[a] and had a leather belt around his waist.”
This line sounds familiar to me.  Its almost exactly how they described John the baptist.  Interesting.  If they added that he ate insects and honey, it would be spot on.
Elijah is an interesting character.  He seems to do crazy miracles.....by invoking God's power.  He has called down fire from heaven several times now!
Crazy faith in his Father.

tp

1 Kings 22

Nothing grand today.  I'm continually amazed at how far the hearts of the kings of God's people have fallen.  We went from a king who was "after God's own heart", to where we are reading now.  I get it, there has been a significant amount of time between then and now.....but wow!  Shrine prostitutes, 400 prophets (not from God), greed, personal agendas........its shocking.
Here's a quick question:  Is this the first time that God referred to his people as sheep?

17 ", I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd,..."

1 Kings 21

29 “Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”

So I don't have a great take today.  This last line actually confuses me.  At first my thought was God's grace covers us when we humble ourselves before him even if we have done rotten things in the past. But in this case it looks like God give Ahab a pass but in the generation after he is gone things will fall apart for his son and the kingdom he leaves behind.

looking forward to your take on this chapter.
knut

1 Kings 20

Well.....its Friday.  On Fridays I like to keep it light hearted.

3 ‘Your silver and gold are mine, and the best of your wives and children are mine.’”

This line made me laugh out loud.  See how twisted I am?  I think its hilarious that he asked for his "best" wives.  I can see this on an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond.  Word comes that the king wants you wife..........really?  He wants her........TAKE HER!  I wonder what the percentage of the total wives, were the best ones?  We know Solomon had, was it 700? wives.....so, these kings probably had a pretty good number.  Even if they had 25.  I can see the king saying you can have all of these....but not that one.  She is my best one!  And take those kids too.  They're trouble.  Except for that one.  I like that one.

hahaha.

I do like reading the stories of the battles.  It seems so crazy that God delivers these huge armies into his peoples hands.  The line that is always used is, "so you will know that I am the Lord your God."  And he does it......the people are amazed.  And then they forget.

so weak
like me
tp

1 Kings 19

I find the interchange between Elijah and God interesting in this chapter.  Elijah has been so full of faith and trust.  He has done AMAZING things including raising someone from the dead!...... and then he slips a little.  He forgets that he is on God's mission.  He even lays down to die!  
Then the conversation makes me laugh.
10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
Then God does all this crazy miraculous stuff right in front of him.  He shows again that he is the creator and Lord of all.  So what is Elijah's response?
14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

I see myself in him, right here.

Look at how far the Israelites have fallen since David and Solomon.

1 Kings 18

³⁴ “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again.
“Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. ³⁵ The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.

I'm not sure why but again the reference to 3 hit me.  what is about this if anything that is significant?  I did some google searches and didn't find anything conclusive.  I did come across a paper on The Third Elijah that was an interesting review of this the first Elijah and John the 2nd Elijah and what the 3rd Elijah will look like when he comes.

http://www.bibleresearch.org/prophecybook2/b2w6.html

Interesting article.  So I guess I don't have a take but it is interesting where a couple lines in the bible take you if you start digging into them.  Maybe that's what God was doing for me the past couple days is just using these words to take me down another path to learn more about his word.  I really don't know but I enjoy finding all the interrelationships scattered throughout the bible.

knut

1 Kings 17

²¹ Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”

Elijah has some strong faith.  I don't believe he had not seen or heard of God raising anyone from the dead before but he knew God could do this miracle and he boldly asked him to do so.  I'm struck by the fact that he cried out 3 times.  I don't know why, it just caught my attention.  God heard him the first time, why would he need to do it 3 times?

Regardless of the number of times, I see a lesson of boldly asking God in prayers for what I want and having faith like Elijah that he hears my prayer and will act.  I also note that what Elijah wants is not really for him but for someone else--another good lesson.  Don't be self centered in my prayers.

knut

1 Kings 15-16

I didn't pull much from these 2.  It is interesting to read how the two groups were ruled, between Israel and Judah.  And how they related to each other.  It seems for the most part they weren't really following God's laws and commands, and God wasn't really happy with them.  The 2 chapters seems to be more negative than positive.  It didn't even seem like one king was written about more than the others.
To be honest, I kept reading and am now in 17.  It gets better there.

tp

1 Kings 14

¹⁶ And he will give Israel up because of the sins Jeroboam has committed and has caused Israel to commit.”

This chapter makes me think of our US society today...a mess.  The one thing I noted here is how the actions of one affected many.  My words and actions could impact others, do I make them positive or do I make them a negative influence on others walk with God?  God notices

knut

1 Kings 13

I found this chapter to be very random.  We quickly went from the stories of Solomon to these characters....and they don't even get a name.  One is "man of God", and the other is "old prophet".  This reads like a parable.  Our pastor often describes a parable as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.  I'm not seeing the deeper picture here.  The top-line lesson is the one you wrote about yesterday, but it seems to me there might be something here that we are missing.  Why include this story here?

http://www.spwickstrom.com/doubt/

I found this explanation of the chapter.  It helped me to read thru it.

tp

1 kings 12-13

^{Ch 13v18} The old prophet answered, “I too am a prophet, as you are. And an angel said to me by the word of the Lord: ‘Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.’” (But he was lying to him.) ¹⁹ So the man of God returned with him and ate and drank in his house.

God gives us clear directions for how to live our lives in the bible, yet following them as broken and flawed humans seems to be a bit of a challenge.  Here a man of God who had received messages directly from God and clearly understood what they were was still able to be convinced to go against those directions by someone trying to deceive him. 

I'm thinking in his heart he knew what he was doing was wrong, but his physical desire for some food and water allowed him to rationalize that this other prophet was speaking the truth so it was ok to go against what God had told him. 

How often do I allow outside influences to close to where I have weakness in my faith resulting in me to sin against God?  I bet more than I realize.  Just yesterday I had some good experiences with the person that frustrates me at work which then deteriorates into me saying or acting in away that is negative.  I had prayed for this in the morning, but how did I respond?  I shared the nice e-mail I received with someone and dismissed the positive response as not genuine.  It wasn't until writing this moments ago that I realized possibly God had given me an opening to improve this relationship that. I realized I may have missed an opportunity.

My goal is to have my heart open for all the times God is talking directly to me or giving me opportunities to help myself.

knut

1 Kings 10-11

ch10 v¹⁴ The weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents,^[e]
ch11 v ⁴ As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

Well here we go again.  He has all the money (had to pick the 666 verse) and sex he wants and now he has no need to listen to God.  He quickly forgot the simple instructions God gave him in spite of how faithful God had been to him.  He absolutely threw it all away.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely--unless you are God.

It seems unfathomable that he would lose sight of how much God has blessed him.  But it probably did not happen over night, it says as he grew old.  So I'm sure the disobedience started small, he probably felt bad about it at first.  Maybe even prayed the God would forgive him and ask for help to stop doing it anymore.  Then he repeated his sins, but maybe rationalized it so he didn't feel too bad.  Then repeated his sins again and didn't even think about how his actions were wrong.  Bam he's so far off track he doesn't even know it.

Well I don't have the problems Solomon had with women, I got the one I want.  But I think I do have other problems that I've asked him for help with to help me control my behavior... speaking negatively about a particular person.  But overtime I have failed repeatedly.  Eventually I have stopped praying for help in my weakness and have in fact used the other person's behavior as my excuse.  How is that following Jesus command to love others?  How am I any different than Solomon?  Simple command that I ignore.   How will my behavior impact my family that comes after me?

knut

1 Kings 9

¹² But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them.


Whenever I see the word 'but' in the bible I pause and read it because it often is a trigger for an important message is something one of my former pastors taught me. This is why this verse caught my attention.  It doesn't go on to say much more on this topic so I'm not sure if this is the start of problems between Hiram and Solomon or not.  But I find it interesting that Hiram was initially looked like he was generous to Solomon in providing cedar and labor to help our Solomon.  It looked very friendly and generous but maybe it came with strings in his mind, expecting more in reciprocation.


How often do I do something for others that I may on the outside make it appear I am doing out of the goodness of my heart but in reality I'd like to see a little something back in return or a nice big thank you or acknowledgement?  hmmm.  I know I am at risk for having those kinds of feelings at times.  One strategy Gina and I have tried when giving money is to keep it anonymous--service is harder to keep anonymous.  We do this for our own good because we want to make sure we are giving our of the right place in our heart and not for the receiver to see and or others to see so that we receive payment back through recognition.


funny direction this took me, had know idea where I was going when I started typing.  I bet there aren't many sermons out of 1 Kings 9 on this topic!  ha!


knut 

1 Kings 8

²⁵ “Now Lord, the God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father the promises you made to him when you said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your descendants are careful in all they do to walk before me faithfully as you have done.’


Well things are looking good in these days, everyone is happy and bless with many gifts from God.  Solomon is a good king and Israel's future looks great, all they need to do is remember the lessons they have learned and continue to follow God's instructions for them and life will continue to be good. da, da, daaaooon.


Though I have not ever read through Kings in its entirety I sense the bad pattern of human behavior will return and good times may turn bad.  If so, it just goes to show how flawed we are as people.  Looking forward to reading the rest of the journey through Kings


knut

1 Kings 7

7 It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace.


Man they were dedicated!  7 years to build the temple and another 13 to build the palace.  How did they keep their focus over such a long period? 


It struck me that it took nearly twice as long to build the King's Palace as the Lord's temple.  That seemed like a negative to me, like maybe more emphasis was put in the wrong place.  I Googled it and found someone that had the same thought, but they also countered with maybe not as much man power and zeal was put into completing the Palace versus the Temple--which is plausible I suppose.  We don't know the answer because the bible is silent to this, but my hunch is like the rest of our imperfect human past maybe its not the noble reason that someone else was able to think of and if it isn't is it yet another sign of trouble?  Did money and possession get the best of the man with more wisdom granted from God than most anyone else?


knut

1 Kings 6

11 The word of the Lord came to Solomon: 12 “As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, observe my laws and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father. 13 And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel.”

This verse resonated with me today.  What strikes me is that same promise has been given to us.  If we CHOOSE God, and live a life with him as our compass and director.....I believe he promises he will be with us.  The decision is up to us.  That's what keep bouncing around inside my melon.  Its up to me.  That's the way God wants it.  He wants me to make a conscious decision to follow his direction.  To choose him, over myself, over this world, over everything else that vies for my attention and heart.  I need to build my temple around him and for him.


have a great weekend!
Next week, the Parker fam is down in Florida so the input might not be as consistent.

tp