2 Kings 19-21
I see a repeated pattern among the righteous kings of Judah in the humility with which they approach the LORD. They do not approach God with pomp and pride, demanding action on their behalf. Instead, they come dressed in sackcloth, praising God and humbly pleading for His intervention for the sake of His great name and His promises. And God never turns away from a humble heart. Nor does God despise a broken heart. When Hezekiah was sick to the point of death, God said to him, “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears.” (2 Kings 20:5b). I know that God says the same to all who devote themselves to Him, even me. That knowledge is a comfort to me.
I also see how the king of Assyria used fear against Hezekiah and the people of Judah. He was attempting to undermine their faith in God, saying that God was deceiving them. This, too, is a familiar theme. This is the very same tactic that Satan used against Eve in the Garden of Eden. But unlike Eve, Hezekiah held fast to his faith. He rebuked the lies and trusted that God is all that He says that He is. Satan continues to try to deceive all of us, through fear, through pride, through need, and through greed, that God is not enough. Let us, like Hezekiah, be consistent in refuting Satan’s lies and hold fast to what we know is true.
Gal. 5
Speaking of the Great Lie that God is not enough, it seems this is the very thing the Galatians were struggling with. Somebody was trying to convince them that they needed Christ AND circumcision. But Paul makes it clear that it is Christ alone, not Christ AND anything else, by which we are saved. He goes a step farther to say that if we rely on anything else, even in part, we have rejected Christ’s work and put ourselves back into bondage to the law. And we already know that the law isn’t able to make anybody righteous.
So we are truly free in Christ. But what does that mean? It certainly doesn’t mean that we are free to do whatever we want. If we continue to live the way we want, then Christ hasn’t changed us at all. Paul has the answer, saying, “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal 5:16). I keep coming back to Psalms 37:4, which says, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart”, with the interpretation that God will change what your heart desires. Paul’s statements to the Galatians seem to support this thought. Paul goes on to say that if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. It is God’s Spirit in us, not the law, which moves us to live obediently to God’s commands to love Him with all that we are and have and to love others as ourselves.