Just Give us Jesus

 DEVOTION

1^ST KINGS

JUST GIVE US JESUS

1 Kings 3:1-5

3:1 Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter. He brought her to the City of David until he finished building his palace and the temple of the LORD, and the wall around Jerusalem. 2 The people, however, were still sacrificing at the high places, because a temple had not yet been built for the Name of the LORD. 3 Solomon showed his love for the LORD by walking according to the statutes of his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places. 4 The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. 5 At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you

NIV

We will get to the answer Solomon gave to the Lord, but it is too long to include in this initial portion of information that we think is important. Of course, taking another wife was just the way life was in those days, and as this was an alliance with the king of Egypt, it could have been a purely political reason. Nevertheless, the important issue is that Solomon went to a high place to offer sacrifices to the LORD. Although Israel had been instructed about the high places and not to offer sacrifices because that is where pagans offered sacrifices to pagan gods. But now we see that God accepted these offerings from Solomon because he came to him in a dream during the night and told Solomon he could ask for whatever he wanted the Lord to give him. Jesus told his disciples and us that very same thing. He told us we can ask for anything in his name and he will do it. Of course, we know what Solomon asked for, and it was not material things. However, we wonder if we have not gotten a little distracted and ask for at least some of those material things. Yet, we know the truth of seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Then we would ask for His kingdom to come, His will to be done on earth, that is within us, as it is in heaven. What else is important? Jesus is our righteousness, so if we ask or seek the righteousness of God, we are seeking Jesus. He has to be the most important person in our lives, for without Jesus, we are lost forever. Jesus is the fullest expression of love from our heavenly Father. Of course, we want his will to be done in our lives. But we wonder if we have been distracted by our will at times. Although the words are not found in the scripture, we use the term “freewill” because God gave Adam the ability to choose to do what was right and keep from doing what was wrong, and Adam chose wrongly. So, we have that choice to choose rightly or wrongly, and when we make the choice to pay attention to our will, wanting what we want, and pursuing our goals, aspirations, or desires, we are circumventing God’s will in our lives. We might think we know what is best for us, but we are also confident that Father knows best, and we should always be paying attention to what He wants in our lives. He is still asking what we want him to give us. Our answer should be, “Just give us Jesus”. We know the LORD gave Solomon much more than he asked for, and we know the Lord has promised he will also give us more, but the “more” is not what we ask for. We ask for his will to be done in our lives, and just give us Jesus, his righteousness.