Scripture Passage
“So King Shishak of Egypt came up and attacked Jerusalem. He ransacked the treasuries of the LORD’s Temple and the royal palace; he stole everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made. 10 King Rehoboam later replaced them with bronze shields as substitutes…” (2 Chronicles 12:9-10 NLT)
Observation
The kingdom of Israel—so significant and powerful under Solomon—is crumbling fast. Israel has become two nations—Israel and Judah—with two kings—Rehoboam and Jeroboam. And both of those nations are collapsing at breakneck speed.
In Judah’s case particularly, the nation is attacked by Egypt, and Shishak, King of Egypt, enriches his nation’s treasury by taking from Israel 500 gold shields (200 large, 300 small—see 1 Kings 10:16-17) that Solomon had made and used in decorating the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. Rehoboam, the Bible says, “replaced them with bronze shields as substitutes.”
Makes me wonder about us—individually and corporately—…about what’s been taken from us and how we’ve substituted for it. I’m thinking specifically about the richness of corporate life…the vitality of relationship…the abiding sense of the presence of the Lord…the realizations and expectations surrounding the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit…that characterized the church we read about in the book of Acts—and how we’ve traded that for…well, I’m not sure what we’ve traded it for—efficiency? relevance? good strategic planning?
Hey, you know I love the word “strategic,” so there’s part of me that has no problem with that! Plenty of what I’ve seen in the name of Spirit-filled life and ministry has seemed to me to have been so scattered, diffused, and self-serving. Still…still…there was a genuineness…a reality present in the people of God that I read about in Acts—and that I’ve seen on occasion in my own experience—that we cannot afford to be without. We cannot afford to substitute bronze shields for “shields of gold.”
“Do not put out the Spirit's fire,” Paul says. “Do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 NIV). In light of today’s reading—don’t settle for bronze replacements. Pursue and embrace “shields of gold.”
1 comment:
The scripture that impressed upon me today was 1Kings 15:5 (kjv). "Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite."
Makes me realize that no matter how much we are pleasing to the Lord, or how much in what we do obey God, it's that one BIG sin (or lots of little ones) that will always be what some people choose to remember about me. I don't want to be known as: "wow, she's such a woman after God's heart, except for that thing she did 10 yrs ago..." I know that's a consequence of sin.
That is where the grace of God steps in and the covering of sins by the shed blood of Jesus and my acceptance as such says to those sins: "goodbye, you are gone and I CHOOSE to forget them"
Only a perfect Saviour can do such a thing...I am grateful for that...so who cares what people remember about me? Okay, sometimes I do, but I'll accept what Christ gives. :)
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