Reading the books of Kings and Chronicles is like reading a yo-yo instructional. Good king, bad king, good king, bad king, bad king, bad king, good king and so on. The good thing about these books is even the kings who did good in the sight of the Lord, forgot, or abandoned the things they were called to do. The main emphasis on evil in these book is idol worship and when the kings, described as good, relinquished their responsibility to remove the places of false worship they missed out on the opportunity of ridding their land of Satan's deception.
Just like our own lives, we all have things that we may intentionally or unintentionally forget or choose not to give up or destroy. Israel had a real problem with allowing false idols into their land and time and time again God's anger would arise and then calm. Eventually though, Israel was exiled from their land and have only in the last 60 years been able to claim it again. Israel, through their lack of self control removed God's blessings from their land; do we too want to remove His blessings from us?
Idols come in all shapes and sizes; money, work, relationships, power, television, internet, gossip, food, and so much more. Satan will use ANYTHING to take your focus off God. The problem is Satan can make these things seem unimportant or they are just part of your nature, but in the end, anything that takes precedence over God, is an idol. Just like the temples, the shrines or the Asherah pole, we have idol worship we too can fall into. It is so easy to read these stories and wander what was wrong with the Israelites, when we have to make sure we have checked our emails, facebook, twitter accounts, had our coffee, our raison toast and have the house spotless within the first hour of being awake.
Satan is out to steal the blessings of God away from us. He uses deceit, lies, untruths, in order to remove our focus off our immeasurable God. Idols come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from hobbies to addictions. Satan will never stop trying to take your focus off God and God will never stop trying to get you to focus on Him. God loves us, He has promised us lives full of blessings and favour. If we allow ourselves to have our main focus on God, we will surely not push away any blessings that are flowing out of His hands.
Tim McDonald lives and works in Mackay Queensland with a family of four children. He leads YAC (Young Adults Cell) group and is the drummer in his church's youthful band.
Tim's archive of articles can be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/tim-mcdonald.html