2 Chron. 15-16
“The LORD is with you while you are with Him.” (2 Chron 15:1a). The Holy Spirit has been convicting me recently of my tendency to want God to be with me more than for me to be with God. I do not intentionally turn away from Him, but too often I take for granted that He will ‘follow along’ with me and be with me wherever I go. But He says here that He will be with me when I am with Him. It is on me to seek Him first, then He will take care of the rest.
King Asa started out on the right path, leading the people – even many from Israel – to “seek the LORD…with all their heart and all their soul” (2 Chron 15:12). It says they sought Him with “their whole desire” (vs.15), and that He was found by them, as promised. And it says in verse 17, “the heart of Asa was wholly true all his days.” But something happened over the next 30 or so years. Somewhere along the way, Asa stopped relying on God, as he had in that first battle against the Ethiopians that we read about yesterday. Instead, he turned to other rulers and to physicians and such.
My guess is that the ‘something’ that happened to Asa was complacency and taking God for granted. His heart was still wholly true to God, but his desires had strayed elsewhere. He was a man divided. And he reacted with anger when he was confronted with this truth. It is so easy, especially when God grants us a life of peace, as He did for Asa, to slip into complacency and to assume that God will be with us when we grow slack in seeking. The good news is that, when we are convicted of this truth, we have the choice to respond as Asa did, with pride, or to respond with humility. And we have seen over and over and over again, that God does not refuse a genuinely humbled heart.
2 Cor. 5
Have I mentioned that Paul’s writing is profound? The principles of God can be difficult to wrap our human minds around, and Paul did his best to lay it out there for us. The good news is that God’s wisdom is there for the asking. And, as we have just read, He promises that if we seek Him, He will be found by us.
There is a lot wrapped up in this passage. The main thing that jumps out to me this morning, however, is verse 14b-15. “One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.” I don’t know that I can say that better than Paul did, but I can say it differently. And perhaps that will help solidify this truth in my mind and yours.
The penalty for sin is death. The sinner must die to fully atone for his sin. But that would be the end of it. Death. So Christ stepped in and died on behalf of all of us – He paid the entire penalty in full. Because He died for us all, we all died with Him – because there cannot be life unless we die to sin. But our death is now no longer a death that leads to death but, rather, a death that leads to life…if we let it. However, it is no longer our life. Because it was Christ’s death, it is now Christ’s life. If we do not take on Christ’s life, we remain dead. But if we do take on Christ’s life, we no longer live for ourselves, but for Christ, who died to give us life.
And that is how we become a “new creation”, as Paul says in verse 17. “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17). We are reconciled to God and have become vessels through which His reconciliation can flow out to others. What amazing grace!