Today’s Reading, 2 Chronicles 10-12
Focal Scripture: 2 Chronicles 11:16 “Those from every tribe of Israel who had determined in their hearts to seek the Lord their God followed the Levites to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, the God of their ancestors.”
We make decisions everyday. I do not remember the exact number but I know it is in the thousands if not the tens of thousands. Some of the decisions are small and really don’t make much of a difference. Other decisions are massive and have major implications for us personally and our families. Every decision we make goes through an evaluation process. You might ask yourself some of these questions.
- If I make this decisions what are the short term and long term consequences?
- How will this impact my and my family?
- Will this decision require me to change personally?
- Is this decision something that I have to make?
Obviously, there are more questions than that but these are just a few that will go through our minds. Why does this matter? Because we decide what’s important in our lives by our choices.
In today’s reading we see that each tribe of Israel determined in their heart to serve the Lord. This was not by accident. They examined themselves and said “Today, we will pursue God more than anything else in our lives. We will give him our all in word and deed.” These people had to determine that walking with God was more important than anything else they would do. They understood that following the Lord is a choice.
So what about you? I have had many conversations with people where following the Lord was not a priority. They could talk the talk but had zero fruit in their lives. They didn’t make a decision to follow God they made a decision to follow rules and regulations. These are people who professed Christ but never possessed him to begin with in any real sense.
Today, I challenge you to examine yourself and see if you have chosen to follow the Lord. When you do this it will require you to die to yourself. I love being a Southern Baptist and we get most things right biblically. However, one of the biggest failures we have had as a denomination is telling people they are born again but they do not forsake their former life. They haven’t counted the cost. There is no understanding of repentance. Which means they never made a choice to follow the Lord. The decision was based off of feelings and emotions. It was based off of popularity and convenience.
I hope today you have examined your heart and your mind. I hope they have repented of sin and followed Christ with reckless abandon. We are called to follow the Lord not people. The test of true conversion is a changed heart and a changed life.
Tomorrow, I plan on reading 1 Kings 15 & 2 Chronicles 13-16
