“His lightning lights up the world;
the earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all peoples see his glory.” Psalm 96:4-6 NIV
With Love,
This Is My Journey Unscripted.
Do you want to become a Christian? Click this link to learn more: Who Is Jesus?
realchristianwomen.blog
As I read through 1 Kings, I was stunned when I read these words about King Solomon:
“As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.” 1 Kings 11: 3-6
Notice that Solomon started doing what “everyone else” was doing. He probably thought, “All the kings have lots of wives and concubines. All the kings have idols. I’m just doing what all the kings do. Things are different now from when my father was king.”
We can do the same thing today by accepting what the world puts forth as truth rather than holding on to God’s Word, which is the real Truth.
Ashtoreth was the pagan goddess of war and sexual love. How is that any different from the sexual freedom found in today’s world?
Molek was an Ammonite god who required propitiatory child sacrifice. A couple sacrificed their firstborn by burning the child on a metal idol of Molech, believing that Molech would ensure financial prosperity for the family and future children. (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) How is that any different from the abortion industry, which is really all about money, not women’s rights?
Idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than God as if it were God.
So what do we worship as if it were God? It doesn’t have to be a pagan statue. The Apostle Paul tells us more.
“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” Colossians 3:5-6
Here the Apostle Paul plainly states that idolatry doesn’t only refer to a golden calf.
“Idolatry starts in the heart: craving, wanting, enjoying, being satisfied by anything that you treasure more than God. That is an idol. If we find God to be so boring or so negligible that we must put other things in his place that really satisfy us more than he does, then we not only offend him, but we also destroy ourselves.” John Piper
“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” Romans 1:25-27
“Since the fall, the hearts of humans have been inclined toward idolatry” Dr. Jeff Reynolds
Things like a job, money, a car, or any number of created things could become an idol. But don’t let the devil condemn you, saying this is your idol and that is your idol. Ask the Lord with a sincere heart to show you if you have any idols. The Holy Spirit will bring conviction, but not condemnation. Conviction makes you want to change, but condemnation makes you want to give up.
“Yet I am glad now, not because you were pained, but because you were pained into repentance [and so turned back to God]; for you felt a grief such as God meant you to feel . . . For godly grief and the pain God is permitted to direct, produce a repentance that leads and contributes to salvation and deliverance from evil, and it never brings regret;” 2 Corinthians 7:9-10 AMP
With Love,
This Is My Journey Unscripted.
Do you want to become a Christian? Click this link to learn more: Who Is Jesus?
realchristianwomen.blog
For who is God besides the Lord?
And who is the Rock except our God?
It is God who arms me with strength
and keeps my way secure.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he causes me to stand on the heights. 2 Samuel 22:32-34
With Love,
This Is My Journey Unscripted.
Do you want to become a Christian? Click this link to learn more: Who Is Jesus?
realchristianwomen.blog
“You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds,
O God our savior.
You are the hope of everyone on earth,
even those who sail on distant seas.
6 You formed the mountains by your power
and armed yourself with mighty strength.
7 You quieted the raging oceans
with their pounding waves
and silenced the shouting of the nations.
8 Those who live at the ends of the earth
stand in awe of your wonders.
From where the sun rises to where it sets,
you inspire shouts of joy.” Psalm 65:5-8 NLT
With Love,
This Is My Journey Unscripted.
Do you want to become a Christian? Click this link to learn more: Who Is Jesus?
realchristianwomen.blog
“Teach me your ways, O Lord,
that I may live according to your truth!
Grant me purity of heart,
so that I may honor you.
With all my heart I will praise you, O Lord my God.
I will give glory to your name forever,
13 for your love for me is very great.” Psalm 86:11-13a NLT
With Love,
This Is My Journey Unscripted.
Do you want to become a Christian? Click this link to learn more: Who Is Jesus?
realchristianwomen.blog
We don’t have to visit a temple made by man to be in the presence of God, as the Israelites did. As a Christ Follower, we are the temple of God and He dwells within us. Isn’t that an amazing thought? As I read about the building of the Temple, I was struck by the great wealth and incredible planning that went into it. It took Solomon seven years to build the temple. (See 1 Kings 5-8)
Solomon used 8,100,187.5 pounds of gold and 76,275,000 pounds of silver. The gold and silver alone was worth $216,603,576,000. This does not include all the precious metals, bronze, iron, ivory, or cedar wood used in the temple. Extrapolating from the number, the total cost of Solomon’s temple including the labor costs (153,000 forced laborers) would have been well over half a billion dollars! Pure gold was everywhere! Even the wick trimmers were made of pure gold! No detail was overlooked.
The Living God doesn’t live in a building. If you are a Christ Follower, He is literally living in your body! Take a moment to let that soak in.
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV
You may think the temple that Solomon built came at an incredible price, and it did. But God purchased you at an even greater cost, the precious, priceless blood of Jesus Christ. So what does that mean to us today?
We must recognize that we are the temple of God and that we belong to God. He has a plan for us. We have been commissioned to go out and make disciples. We are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves. This is obedience to the One who owns us, to love one another. We must examine ourselves to see if we are honoring the price He paid.
Just as the Lord paid careful attention to how His people treated His temple, so He takes note of the choices we make, our priorities, and the directions we pursue. Our bodies are no longer “our own” because we no longer belong to ourselves but wholly and completely to God. This is the single most important truth about our lives.”
dr. David Jeremiah
“. . . the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27 NIV
“Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard the precious truth that has been entrusted to you.” 2 Timothy 1:14 NLT
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” Ephesians 3: 14-17 NIV
We may look around at our world and blame our problems on the culture, drugs, TV, violent video games, and any number of evils in the world. But we must remember that revival doesn’t start in the world, it starts in the hearts of God’s people, the Church.
What would happen in our world today if all Christ followers in this generation chose to be Christ-centered instead of self-centered?
With Love,
This Is My Journey Unscripted.
Do you want to become a Christian? Click this link to learn more: Who Is Jesus?
realchristianwomen.blog
Jeremiah Study Bible
Photos by Center for Online Judaic Studies
Rdchamberlain.com (cost of temple)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. John 1:1-3 NIV
With Love,
This Is My Journey Unscripted.
Do you want to become a Christian? Click this link to learn more: Who Is Jesus?
realchristianwomen.blog
Many thanks to Jan Trabue for Photos!
