It’s Not Enough To Just Start Well

-May 6, 2024-

Good morning beloved, happy Monday,

“Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, ‘Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.’”

(1 Kings 11:11).

The older I get the more I realize how important it is to stay close to the Lord, do His will, and rely completely on Him. King Solomon is a prime example of one who began well but fell far short in his older years.

The seeds of his fall were planted when he married Pharaoh’s daughter and took many other foreign wives who took his heart away from the following the Lord to worship idols.

1 Kings 11:1-2 says, “But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites—from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, you shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn your hearts after their gods. Solomon clung to these in love.”

Solomon had great potential for the Lord but never lived up to it. God had given him peace and rest, wisdom beyond measure, great riches, honor, and fame all over the ancient world. It is hard to believe that the same man wrote Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. The former was all about wisdom and godly living, and the latter all out earthly pursuits of everything under the sun apart from God, which is vanity.

We are no different than Solomon, we can allow the pleasures of this world to distract us and attract us; hinder us and weaken us spiritually. It often begins very subtlety and before we know we are drifting away from who God wants us to be and what He wants us to do.

1 Kings 11:9 says, “So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.” God tore 10 tribes from him and gave them to Jeroboam his servant. God didn’t do it in his lifetime but in his son Rehoboam’s. He did however bring adversaries against him: Hadad the Edomite, Rezon the son of Eliadah, and his own servant Jeroboam.

God uses people and circumstances to get our attention and bring us to repentance and restoration. If we don’t heed His voice, He will take more severe measures to bring us back to Himself. God said in Hosea 6:1, “Come, let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.”

Let us listen to the Lord, repent, and turn back to Him. Paul warned us, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Satan is a very crafty foe. He knows our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The Lord is much stronger and will help us when we humble ourselves and seek Him.

Have a blessed day all the way through the day and the rest of our lives. Stay safe and healthy.

From beginning to end, let us stay close to Jesus our Savior, Lord and Friend.

Dean