Focus

 DEVOTION

1^ST KINGS

FOCUS

1 Kings 16:23-28

23 In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned twelve years, six of them in Tirzah. 24 He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver and built a city on the hill, calling it Samaria, after Shemer, the name of the former owner of the hill. 25 But Omri did evil in the eyes of the LORD and sinned more than all those before him. 26 He walked in all the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit, so that they provoked the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger by their worthless idols. 27 As for the other events of Omri's reign, what he did and the things he achieved, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel? 28 Omri rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. And Ahab his son succeeded him as king.

NIV

Another king who served worthless idols, as he walked in the way of his great, great, great-grandfather, Jeroboam. Omri also did evil in the eyes of the LORD. It is no wonder that Jesus came through the line of Judah with all these kings of Israel always committing the sins of Jeroboam and worshipping worthless idols. We have been blessed to have the Holy Spirit convict us so strongly that we turned from our wicked ways and accepted the grace of God, Jesus, as our Lord and Savior. We cannot be sure whether we ever worshipped worthless idols before Jesus came into our lives, but in some sense, everything about our lives could have been seen as worthless, except to God. He so loved us that he sent Jesus, so that whosoever, which meant us, believed in him should not perish, but would have everlasting life. God never saw us as worthless, because we have always been his creation with the intent to fellowship with us. Sin disturbed that relationship. We could almost say broke it, but that may not be true, as although we were caught up with worthless living, God still sent Jesus, and the Holy Spirit still came to convict us of our need for Jesus. Even though we are now followers of Jesus, who some say are Christians, we must always be careful not to get sidetracked by any kind or form of idol. That is not to say we cannot put our efforts into our work or profession, or have things, hobbies, or interests, or even time itself; it is just that we cannot make them so important that they become more important than our relationship with Jesus. It always comes back to doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord. We know it is right to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We know it is right to offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. We know it is right to love God with our whole being, and to love each other as we love ourselves. One after another, so many things are right in the eyes of the Lord, that if we occupied ourselves with all the right things, we should not have any time left to do what is evil in his sight. The question we must ask ourselves is what our focus is, or who we are focused on, ourselves or God?