Bible Truth Daily Devotion

2 Chronicles 36:1-23

16 but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, until there was no remedy.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  The day is important not just for Christians but is important for everyone else.  It goes beyond giving gifts and getting vacation time.  The true meaning is just not yet grasped by people. 

The meaning of Christmas is in Jesus’ name.  His name means He saves.   Specifically, Jesus saves people from sins and the consequence of sins.  On our own, we cannot stop sinning, such as the deceits, covetousness, or lusts, and we are destined to destruction.  But Jesus came to give all a chance of new life in Him.  By trusting Him to be the Son of God, having died on the cross and resurrected three days later, all can lay claim to the divine power of new spiritual birth.  His birth can lead to our new birth. 

Birthday celebration is important to friends and relatives.  Many people have birthdays that are celebrated by some friends and family, some have birthdays that are celebrated by many.  But the birth of Jesus is for all men.  Everyone should celebrate it.

The essence of the verse still rings true to us on this Christmas day.  The message of Christmas is preached around the world in varying forms.  People have a chance to hear it and receive it in their heart.  For some, they take it into their heart and receive it joyfully. 

Then there are those who did not receive it.  They did not take the message in.  They did not believe in the words of God.  There are even some who would mock the messengers of the Christmas message.  They despise the words of God and scoff at the messengers.  God is not mocked; He would one day judge all those who despise the Word.

Meditation:

What does Christmas mean to you?  Do you celebrate the true meaning of Christmas in your heart and in your actions?  In your heart, do you rely on Jesus to save you from sins?  In your actions, are you diligent to stay away from sins and to preach the message of Christmas to other?

Prayer:

Lord, thank you for your coming both two thousand years ago and now into my life.  I pray that I am a good messenger of Christmas.

2 Chronicles 35:20-27

22 However, Josiah would not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to make war with him; nor did he listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but came to make war on the plain of Megiddo.

Chinese has a saying, “煩惱皆因強出頭.”  The saying basically said that problems are a result of taking on more than what you can bear.  It is sort like the saying of painting yourself into a corner. 

The army of Judah under King Josiah was not great.  Neco, the Pharaoh of Egypt, wanted to battle the Babylonians.  In order to do so, his army had to move through Judah.  Neco made it clear to Josiah that he wanted no war with Judah; lest there was a war.  But King Josiah wanted to fight with Neco.  Josiah lost the war and was mortally wounded.  He died in Jerusalem. 

You may say that Josiah’s case was a unique case.  He was picking a fight with a powerful nation.  For commoners like us, we usually would not be in such a problem.   I think the logic makes sense.  Yet the fact makes this a compelling case for everyone of us.  The scripture makes it clear that it was not the powerful nation that caused the downfall of Josiah.  Instead, the cause was that he did not listen to the words of God.  It was God that Josiah picked a fight with.   

The scripture did not explain how Josiah came to know about the words of God.  It just said that he knew.  I think the same situation can be said about our own life.  Sometimes, we just know that we are violating the words of God.   In our guts or actual knowledge, we know we are sinning.  At such time, we have a choice to make; we can either stop or continue. 

King Josiah did not stop.  He ended up dead.  Not only that, his kingdom was in great turmoil afterward because of his rebellion. 

Meditation:

Rather from our conscience or from reading the Bible, we can know the will of God.  The question is whether we stop when we recognize that we are sinning against God.  One choice is that we continue. By doing so, we incur wrath on our head and cause tremendous pain to our loved ones.

The other choice is smarter.  When we hear the reminder from the words of God, we stop and turn around.  We will please God and men. 

Prayer:

Pray for the willingness to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

2 Chronicles 35:1-19

18 There had not been celebrated a Passover like it in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet; nor had any of the kings of Israel celebrated such a Passover as Josiah did with the priests, the Levites, all Judah and Israel who were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Christmas season is here, and I hope everyone is doing a lot of celebration.  I am doing that in my home quite a bit myself.  We had guests last Friday and today.  Interspersed with some outings, there seems to be not enough time to do everything.  Hence, I found the home situation a bit exciting and stressful. 

Exciting and stressful are often associated with celebration.   Here in verse 18, we find that the Jews were celebrating the Passover.  It was stressful for them because every male Jews needed to travel to Jerusalem to attend the feast.  It was exciting as well, because they had not done so since the time of Samuel, which was about five hundred years before King Josiah. 

But the symbolism of the celebration cannot be lost.  For the Israelites, the Passover represents the rescue from bondage.  They were slaves in Egypt.  God sent angels to kill all first born in Egypt but passed over the Jews.  The Passover is a celebration of freedom from the bondage of the Egyptians.  For everyone on earth, Christmas also represents the rescue from bondage.  Everyone is slave to sin until Jesus came in the form of a helpless babe.  His eventual death on the cross rescues all who put their faith in Him from the bondage of sin.   Christmas is the celebration of freedom from the bondage of sin.

Meditation:

Here in this Christmas season do you have something to celebrate with your friends and family?  What is the focus of the celebration?  Would you put Jesus in the forefront in the celebration?  Would the message of Christmas be the main theme or be lost in all the outings and feasts?  You can make the call.

Prayer:

Pray that Jesus be magnified in our life.

2 Chronicles 34:14-33

27 “Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its inhabitants, and because you humbled yourself before Me, tore your clothes and wept before Me, I truly have heard you,” declares the Lord.

2 Chronicles 34:1-13

How much to give to God is enough?  For King Josiah, he did not stop until it was right.  He started with cutting down the Asherim poles and the idols.  Then he tore down the altars.  He did not spare the relics of the false religions either.  So he burned the bones of the priests. 

King Josiah continued with his reform.  He collected money from the people to give to the priests.  The priests used the money to repair the house of God. 

King Josiah went after what God desired.  He kept doing things for God and built on the success.  He was a good model for serving God.

Meditation:

Have we loved God as King Josiah had?   Do we go after the things that God desire until they are all implemented?  We can easily get too satisfied over what we have given God but neglect that we are still far from the standard God has laid down.  Here is the standard: Let us love God as He has loved us.  He laid down His life for us.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, let my heart be ever loving you with all that I have.

Devotional Verse:  34:3 For in the eighth year of his reign while he was still a youth, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, the carved images and the molten images.

2 Chronicles 33:12-25

23 Moreover, he did not humble himself before the Lord as his father Manasseh had done, but Amon multiplied guilt.

What is hindering you to have an intimate relationship?  There is no perfect friend; so a friend can wrong you any time.  People may not realize it, but denial of wrong or delay of confession strains a relationship.  This dynamics of a relationship is true for people and true for God as well.

Amon was the son of King Manasseh.  Manasseh was not a perfect king.  In fact, he had ignored God for most of his life.  As a result of his continual disregarding God he was led with hooks, bounded, and taken to Babylon.  Having experiencing the pain and being at the lowest point in his life, Manasseh humbled himself and reached out to God.  God then restored him to his kingdom.  This lesson of Manasseh, however, did not impress his son.  King Amon, instead, repeated what his father had done earlier in life and even more—the meaning of the phrase “multiplied guilt.”  King Amon ended up being assassinated by his servant.  What a terrible ending it was.

There is a saying in Cantonese about someone who is stubborn in a spiritual sense.  It goes like “唔信邪”, which means the person does not believe in the spiritual power.   We are all stubborn at one point or another.  We really do not believe that God finds all unrighteousness offensive and that He keeps count of them.  But He does.  (Before you think that God is a miserable old man grumbling over the little bitsy unpleasant thing, you need to recognize that God does not have sin and created us without sins.  Sins are rebellion against God and lead us to eternal separation from the eternal God.  God cares and wants no one to sin.  One day, our sins would be before us and God and would be evidence to testify against us.  We would face eternal damnation if we did not repent of our sin and did not believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, dying for our sins.)

When we make a mistake that hurts someone, we need to be humble.  We need to go to that person to apologize and to ask forgiveness.  Doing so will help restore the relationship.  When we sin, we need to be sensitive that it is also God we have offended.  We need to humble ourselves and to make confession to God.   Not reconciling with God severs the most important relationship in anyone’s life.

Meditation:

When was the last time you humble yourself?  If so, whom did you humble yourself to?  Would you find it easier to humble yourself to an authority figure, a peer, a stranger, or to God? 

Prayer:

Pray that we humble ourselves to God and confess our sin.

2 Chronicles 33:1-11

10 The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention.

In a 24 hour period yesterday, how often did you consider God before you made any of your decisions?   Were you ever hindered in making the choices and following through with them?   What were the reasons we could make decision without God’s interference?  There are all questions related to the notion of free will.

Free will is what the Creator endows human beings.  Free will allows us to make choices and the freedom to follow through with the choices.   The later part is vital.  For what is a free will if it cannot be carried out to its ultimate end, whether it is good or bad?  For example, if a person wants to jump off a tall building, he should be allowed a free fall.  God should not stop him from falling.  If God does not allow freefall, all those daring parachute jumper would cry foul.  Likewise, the person committing a suicide would blame God for stopping him. 

God, therefore, allows free will but along with it the consequence of it.  One perspective of free will is that people can even ignore God, who is the master of everything.   That would be the ultimate exercise of free will. 

Ignoring God was exactly what happened in Manasseh’s time.  God used prophets to speak to people about His decrees, to preach the word of God, and to reprove sins.  Prophets had no authority over the people or the king.  When people ignored the prophets, they were actually ignoring God.

Since the exercise of free will should be allowed to be carried out to the ultimate end, people are also responsible for the consequence of their choice.  If people violate another person on earth, they will be prosecuted under the law.  When people offend God, they are subjected to the judgment of God.  God would bring on the consequence. 

In the time of Noah, people ignored God and enjoyed their life.  They no longer believed in God.  They thought they owned the world and could do whatever they wanted to maximize their pleasure.  They did not give thanks for the things that God has given them.  Moreover, they had forgotten that this life was fleeting in comparison to the eternal life that would come.  God did not want generations and generations of human beings to perish eternally.  Therefore, he brought on the flood to start the human race again.  He would start it right with Noah. 

Meditation:

There is a consequence to every action we take.  Consider God and His word when we do them.  God would call us righteous and bless us.  Ignore God; we would perish.

Prayer:

May we meditate on His word day and night, so we will be like a tree planted next to the river.

2 Chronicles 32:20-33

2 Chronicles 32:25 But Hezekiah gave no return for the benefit he received, because his heart was proud; therefore wrath came on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.

God just provided King Hezekiah a miraculous victory over the powerful Assyrian army.  Then God healed him from a mortal illness.  God saved him twice literally; King Hezekiah should give thanks to God.  Instead, he basked in men’s exaltation given to him and neglected to attribute his success and his good health to God.  Why would he forget that God is the ultimate giver?  2Chronicles 32:25 explained that his heart was proud. 

King Hezekiah was spiritual prideful.  He did not acknowledge God for His works, His authority, and His sovereignty.  Hezekiah took the credit as his own effort.  For that he received God’s wrath. 

God said that there are six things He hates.  Topping the list is haughty eyes.  Haughty eyes are a graphical description of pride.  God hates all pride. Being spiritual prideful is the worst because one even ignores God, the ultimate giver of all things.

Meditation:

Have you been spiritually prideful?  Do you acknowledge God in what you have, what you do, and what you achieve?  How did God discipline you?  Would you mind to share with us?

What are the ways that you can start giving thanks to God?  How can we be creative in our ways of acknowledging our Lord and Savior in front of others?  Please share.

Prayer:

Let’s give our Lord the honor, glory, power, praise, and thanksgiving.

2 Chronicles 32:1-19

Devotional Verse in 2Chronicles 32:3

In a war, the outcome is either a win or a loss.  For that reason, President Obama declared that the US is in the Afghanistan war to win.  He then approved the general’s request to increase the troop strength to overcome the enemy. 

Afghanistan war has proven tougher than the war in Iraq because of the terrain and weather.  The Taliban certainly used those to their advantage.  They would hit and run the US troops, using guerilla warfare.  They also would hit the supply line of troops to disrupt their war plan. 

Cutting off the enemy’s supply line is an important strategy of war.  Tactics relating to supply lines are probably found in all war manuals, like the Small Wars Manual of US Marine Corps and The Art of War by Sun Tzu.  Not surprisingly, the tactic of cutting off supply line is also found in the Bible

In 2Chronicles 32:3, King Hezekiah “decided with his officers and his warriors to cut off the supply of water from the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him.”  The context of the verse was that the king faced the imminent attack by the powerful Assyrian army.  Leaving them no water supply might shorten their siege against Jerusalem or at the very least made their stay difficult.

As Christians, we ought to use the same tactics against our enemies.  I am not talking about plugging up your swimming pool or turning off the water main.  No, I am not talking some physical enemy, for the enemies of Christian are the principalities, the powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and the spiritual wickedness in high places.  They are the unseen.  To imitate King Hezekiah, Christians need to deny our enemies in two ways—cut off their supply line and fill up the water holes. 

How do we deny the spiritual supply line of our spiritual enemies with our physical bodies?  The first way of cutting off spiritual supply line means to deny the desire and the pride of our flesh.  Our physical body naturally craves for that temptation or that excitement.  For example, not too long ago, in a birthday wish exchange on Facebook, a girl proposed to the birthday girl to do “something illegal”  to celebrate the birthday.  This desire to do something bad is the root cause for the tragedy of Sarah Botill (See yesterday post.)  The followers of Christ must not follow the desire or the temptation.  Better yet, Christians should not even go near where temptation is at, i.e. friends that beg us to do “illegal” or “unholy” things or places that Jesus would not go. 

Christians also need to emulate King Hezekiah by plugging up the water hole.  Our mind is like a hole.  It can be filled with whatever we read or hear.  To deny our enemies from using our mind, we should practice plugging up my mind with scripture.  Once it is filled with the scripture, the enemies have no water hole to draw supply.  

Meditation:

You have been in a spiritual war since the day that you committed to follow Jesus.  You need to win or else the enemy has the best of you.  You need to deny the supply line of the enemy to win this war.  Will you commit not to follow friends who beg you to do what Christ would not do and not to go places where Jesus would not go?  Will you commit to reading the scripture and memorizing the scripture on a daily basis?

Prayer:

Pray for a spiritual victory in your life.

2 Chronicles 31:5-21

31:15 Under his authority were Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah and Shecaniah in the cities of the priests, to distribute faithfully their portions to their brothers by divisions, whether great or small,

This verse speaks of a very important character.  It is called faithfulness.  The word “faithful” is defined as “adhering firmly and devotedly, as to a person, cause, or idea; loyal.”[1]  It means that even when there is no one watching, a faithful person will do just as what he is supposed to do as if someone is watching. 

The priests were faithful at what they did.  There was much money involved.  No one was looking.  Certainly, some of them did not have enough influence to mount any challenge, hence the word “small.”  Yet the priests carried out their work faithfulness. 

Faithfulness is a challenge for many young people.  They are wild at heart.  They want to taste the forbidden fruits and expand their horizon.  When there is no one watching, they would do something that is uncharacteristic of them.  Take Sarah Botill as an example. 

Sarah Botill’s day on Dec 4^th started out innocently.  The 15-year-old assured her mother that nothing would go wrong for a sleep over at her friend’s birthday party.  Sarah attended church.  Her friend’s home seemed to be safe.  Her friend’s father was an ex-councilman, who championed parental legal liability for unsupervised underage drinking party gone awry.   There seemed to be enough safeguards.

Sarah never made it back home after she went to her friend’s home.  Another 18-year-old also was there.  Together the three girls sneaked out of the house and went a male friend’s home.  There, they drank beer.  They returned to the friend’s home around 1 AM.  By then, the parents were at sleep.  Then 18-year-old took out a vodka bottle taken from home.  They drank some more.  Long story short, Sarah later was found not breathing and died at the hospital in the morning.

While the police sorts out the details and the exact cause of death, her family, her church, and her friends mourn her death.  People have a hard time grasping the loss.  It is just tragic.

The story would have been altogether avoided if Sarah stuck to her promise.  Sarah should not have drunk alcohol even when her mother was not present.  Faithfulness would have saved her life and much grief of her family.

Meditation:

Young people in Christ, you need to be faithful.  When your church peers are not around, do you exemplify Christ?  When your parents are not looking, do you do what you should do?  When your pastors are not preaching at you, are you faithful in your devotion?

Prayer:

Pray that we will be faithful in little things.  Pray that we follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit.