ERCC DEVOTIONAL (TEKAN) DAILY SPIRITUAL DIET THURSDAY 10TH AUGUST, 2023
TEXT: 1 KINGS 11: 1-11
SPIRITUAL FOCUS: WE SHOULD FEAR THE LORD'S COMMANDMENTS .
Death does not know an adult or a child nor does it care about one's status or greatness. So, it is with sin." In today's reading, the great king, Solomon, fell into sin, and disobeyed the will of the Lord by marrying the wrong people.
He married Moabite women, Ammonites, Edomites, and Sidonians (vs. 1) whom the Lord forbade His people to do (Deut. 7: 3). Every righteous person does not sin suddenly, but gradually. King Solomon began by marrying Pharaoh's daughter (1 Kgs. 3: 1), and today he is more like the enemies of God's people. Sadly, when a person sins against God, he continue to do so slowly, enjoying it if he does not return immediately.
Sin is "pleasurable" to do, but like leprosy it eats up a person, destroying him gradually embarrassing him. The women Solomon married were idolaters who do not know the God of Israel. Now he had to build them a place to worship their idols. Thus, Solomon turned his back on his God. Even today there are many followers of Christ with this attitude.
After they had tasted the grace of God, the world deceived then and so they end up denying Him as Peter did. Because of marriage, position, and wealth, some abandon their Christian course and change their faith. Marriage, status, and wealth are worldly and will not last. Let us not allow them to put us to shame on the last day.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: We must not trust Satan.
PRAYER: Lord God, I beg You to guide me so that I may live a life that will only glorify Your name, Amen.
1 KINGS 11: 1-11 (NIV).
1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites.
2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.
3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.
4 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.
5 He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites.
6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.
7 On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites.
8 He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.
9 The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.
10 Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command.
11 So the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates.
