DIVINELY-ORDAINED REFORMS 2 CHRONICLES 34:1-13 KEY VERSE: “And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of David his father and declined neither to the right hand nor to the left” (2 Chronicles 34:2). Tell them to stand up for Jesus, the final words of a twenty-nine-year-old Episcopalian minister, Dudley Tyng, as he spoke from his deathbed to a group of sorrowing friends and fellow ministers. The result was a great city-wide revival that swept across Philadelphia in 1858. Josiah came to the throne at a time when idolatry was at its peak in Jerusalem. The eighth year into his reign, he decided to stand up for God by carrying out a great reform in the land. He began to seek after the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places and the grooves and the carved images and the molten images. “And when he had broken down the altars and the grooves and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem,” (verse 7). It was after he did this that he now commissioned the rehabilitated house of God. In our contemporary time, we hear people talk about carrying out reforms. Yet a cursory look at most of the so-called reforms in some countries do not meet the standards of what good reforms should be. The major problem is that those who claim to carry out reforms hardly know what reforms mean. Many people have failed to realize that without God, it is impossible to achieve a worthwhile reform. Whether in social, religious or economic aspects of life, reforms are needed to achieve a better result. The Bible says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let them ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering,” (James 1: 5, 6). Believers who refuse to use their influence to positively affect lives are not representing Christ and are therefore not living in accordance with divinely-ordained standards. THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Only the best is good enough for God.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Aug 2013 20:57:35 +0000
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