DEVOTION
1ST KINGS
THE DESIRE
1 Kings 10:11-17
11(Hiram's ships brought gold
from Ophir; and from there they brought great cargoes of almugwood and precious
stones. 12 The king used the almugwood to make supports for the temple of the
LORD and for the royal palace, and to make harps and lyres for the musicians.
So much almugwood has never been imported or seen since that day.) 13 King
Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all she desired and asked for, besides what he
had given her out of his royal bounty. Then she left and returned with her
retinue to her own country. 14 The weight of the gold that Solomon received
yearly was 666 talents, 15 not
including the revenues from merchants and traders and from all the Arabian
kings and the governors of the land. 16 King Solomon made two hundred large
shields of hammered gold; six hundred bekas of gold went into each shield. 17
He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold, with three minas of
gold in each shield. The king put them in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.
NIV
The queen of Sheba brought 4 ½ tons
of gold and more spices than had ever been brought in before, yet Solomon gave
her more than she desired. We are not told what she desired or what Solomon gave
her. If she had that much gold to give away, and all those spices, as she was a
queen who must have lived in a luxurious palace and had many officials and
servants, what then could she have desired that she could not have already had
or would have been able to have? The Lord tells us that He will give us our hearts'
desires, or at least that is the song of David, yet there are so many times we are told
that God will answer, God will give, God will do, God will direct, and on and
on we know that God gives us the very best, in fact, he gave his very best, Jesus.
But what do we desire? Are we looking for valuable stuff, the things of this
world? The Lord told us that when we seek first, which means that must be the
desire of our hearts, as we seek this first, before anything else, the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, He knows what we need, and will give us the stuff
the pagans, or the world, chase after. But that is not the reason we should
seek the kingdom of God first. The only reason we seek first the kingdom of God
is that the kingdom is the desire of our hearts. Interestingly, we can see the
Lord giving us the desires of our hearts in two ways. First, as we have already
considered, He gives what we desire. Secondly, He is the one who gives us the
desire; that is, He puts the desire in our hearts. Before we were believers,
all we had were our own desires, which were focused solely on self-fulfillment.
We were like the world chasing after all the world has to offer. However, now
we are no longer like the world, but we chase after God; we seek Him and His
kingdom and His righteousness. Sure, we still live in this world, but we are
not supposed to be of this world, that is be like it, but we are supposed to be
like Him. As Queen of Sheba took her gifts and
left with all her officials, her entourage, and whatever she desired, we too,
return to our homes, living our lives with the desire the Lord has given us. We
may not have an entourage, but we have the Holy Spirit. We are in Jesus, and He
is in us, and so we can bear much fruit, and thus we have the desire of our hearts.
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