Today’s reading: 2 Chronicles 7; 1 John 3
2 Chronicles 7 gives us another great reminder of what it is that God is most looking for from His people.
At the end of the chapter, when God is making promises to Solomon, those promises are conditional upon Solomon’s faithfulness. God specifically says, “And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.’” As great as this sounds, hasn’t Solomon already violated those statutes and rules? We saw at the end of 2 Chronicles 1, for example, that Solomon was stockpiling horses and chariots, which God had commanded His kings were not to do, and we’re also told he was getting a lot of them from Egypt despite the fact that God had forbidden them from that as well. So if Solomon is already in violation of God’s statutes and rules, is there any hope of Solomon ending up on the right side of these promises?
The short answer is, “yes,” because God goes on to clarify what He’s looking for from Solomon, saying, “But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you…” The thing God is most concerned with is not Solomon’s ability to keep the minutiae of laws and instructions without ever faltering or sinning, but that Solomon maintains his faithfulness to Yahweh.
We have seen and talked about this over and over again as we have gone through the Scriptures the last couple years, but I don’t think we can ever be reminded of it enough; what God most wants from us is our faithfulness to, and trust in, Him over all else.
It can be so easy to get caught up in all the things we are and aren’t doing for God, and I have met a lot of Christians who, when struggling with sin, start to fear that maybe God doesn’t love them or will cast them out if they can’t “get it together” and stop sinning. But God created us, and He knows us and our weaknesses better than anyone. God knows we will never be able to stop sinning entirely, and He knew Israel could never keep perfectly every law and rule He had set before them, but if they stayed faithful to Him, not running after other gods, that was enough. God is most concerned with the disposition of our hearts toward Him.
I hear so many people with a wrong view of God in the Old Testament, thinking that He judged Israel for not being quite good enough and not keeping His laws faithfully enough, but God tells Solomon what we should think when we see Israel’s judgement, “Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’”
God is not vengeful, watching His people, waiting for them to step a toe out of line, ready to swoop in with judgement and condemnation, but is patient and loving, wanting to bless His people, but also not abiding by His people taking His blessings on the one hand and running off to worship other gods on the other hand.
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