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Devotional
Weekly Bible Devotion By Books
March 20-25, 2023
Enter the Presence of the Lord
(All) Therefore, you kings, be wise;
be warned, you rulers of the earth.
(M) Serve the Lord with fear
and celebrate his rule with trembling.
Kiss his son,
(W) or he will be angry
and your way will lead to your destruction,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
(All) Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
The Lord gives strength to his people;
the Lord blesses his people with peace.
(Psalm 2: 10-12; 29: 11)
Confession
Our Lord, the High King, you see far and wide. We tend to think we are the center of the universe and we tend to abuse the talents, power, and position that you gave us. O, God, correct our vision, Lift up us from the troubles we made. We return to you. My you use your words to fill our hearts and minds. Lead us into the righteous path for the sake of your name. Amen.
Adoration
God of our salvation, we honor your glory and strength. We adore your holiness. We praise you that you revealed the way of salvation through your son Jesus Christ and the mystery of your kingdom. Thank you that you give us the church in the world but not of the world. You are the Lord to whom we can submit ourselves in peace. We praise you. Amen.
Scripture Reading
2 Kings 17: 6; 25:8-11
17:6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
25:8-11 8 In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—that was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 And he burned the house of the Lord and the king's house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. 10 And all the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. 11 And the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the multitude, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile.
(Romans 12:1-2) I appeal to you therefore, brothers,by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (CEV)
Thoughts to share A Kingdom of God on earth?
For those who dislike history, the book of 2 kings is an annoyingly difficult book. Who could not get lost in all of kings’ names, their reign years? And, there is an even more boring, almost uniformed comment on those kings: he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, or, he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. Who would not ask how history can be so simplified? Furthermore, this book recorded the devastated, disturbing, and heartbroken endings of the two kingdoms. Amid these confusions, what can we learn one thing from the book of 2 Kings?
We must admit a few things before we can dig in. First, the 2 kings is a very selective portion of almost 350 years of history. Secondly, the 2 Kings intended to present a view from the book of the Law. Thirdly, the reason of their using book of the Law as a ruler for these years is that book of the Law contained the covenant between them and God. The entire kingdom was given and kept based on the saying in the covenant. But, these things are not what we want to ponder here.
Remember, those early settlers in the promise land so much wanted to have a kingdom like other countries around them. God granted the permission with a conditional warning and footnote. He upheld them through hundreds of years. Were those two kingdoms the kingdoms God had promised to them and David and his house? Did God break his promise?
2 Kings tells us of a great experimental of implementing an earthly God’s kingdom in the world. Its result was a failure. In our times, does anyone feel ambitious of having a God’s kingdom or Christian kingdom on the earth? Seeing through 2 Kings, we learned that it will be disappointing! It will not be successful. This leads us to ponder what God’s promise to David really means? Honestly, the promise was a mystery to Judah people, including David himself then. After a few hundred years, Jesus came to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God, to die, to resurrect, to teach his disciples, to ascend, to send the Holy Spirit, to birth the church, and to reveal to the last things again. It became clearer and clearer that the promised kingdom of God is not an earthly kingdom like those nations around the Israelites. It is not done by humans. Their calling, identity and mission were right in this world which was full of all challenges.
The two kingdoms’ history in 2 Kings teaches us that minding our mission and identity in everyday life contexts in the world ever evolving and changing. The way of sustaining our way of life in the world is to let our minds to be transformed in the word of God and in the life of God’s son Jesus Christ.
Prayer suggestions
O Lord, our forever and living King, thank you for your word and wisdom in it. Thank you for the church you have birthed. Thank you for your invitation of us into your church. Thank you for the final holy and splendid kingdom that you revealed to us through the apostle John. We better know your will for us now and your hope for us in the future. Keep us and guide us in our life journey in the world. Let that eternal hope be always alive in us. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ.
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