Dave's Diary

Daily Readings: 2 Kings 22 and Psalm 139

As if to prove yesterday’s point, the young King Josiah bucked the trend of his father Amon and grandfather Manasseh and turned his heart towards the Lord again. He made his own choice- as we all must – and pursued God.

Shockingly, it was not until Josiah had ruled for 18 years that Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, ‘I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord.’ He gave it to Shaphan, who read it. This implies that for the first 18 years of his reign (from age 8) Josiah desired to serve the Lord, but he was doing so blindly. You can bet his family had never instructed him in the ways of the Lord. Their hearts had been prostituted to other gods. And even the priests at the Temple were utterly ignorant of how to serve Yahweh. For two generations they had only ever served pagan idols in the Temple.

Imagine Josiah’s horror when he heard the Word of the Lord for the first time at age 26. For the first time he realised how desperately far all Israel had fallen. He realised the blessings they had abandoned by turning away from God. He realised the curses they had chosen to inherit by their own idolatry, wickedness and immorality. His desperate order to his seretary was “‘Go and enquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.’”

Today’s discipleship question is: What part of God’s Word does our generation of Christians ignore? We have God’s Word more readily and immediately accessible than any previous generation. But which parts do we studiously avoid reading and accepting as normative for ourselves? About which parts of the Word of the Lord will our children and their children ask themselves, ‘Why did they never show me this? I never knew that God wanted this for me … or that God gave this command so clearly?’

Heavenly Father, help me to be faithful to Your full counsel in Scripture, and not to pick and choose the parts that I find comfortable and easy. Help me to submit fully to Your Word with an obedient and reverent heart. Amen.