Makes for a great Sound Bite

Ahab, king of Israel, wanted to do battle against a certain city. He called his new buddy Jehoshaphat to join him. To put it mildly, Ahab was a bad guy and Jehoshaphat a pretty good guy (in that he sought the Lord). Jehoshaphat asked a simple question of Abab, "how about we ask what the Lord wants."

Abab got his band of prophets together and they knew the king wanted to hear "go up, for the battle is yours." So that's just what they said. Jehoshaphat was skeptical and wanted to know if there was a "prophet of the Lord" they could ask.

If you know the story, the prophet at first went along as he was told, but later told the truth. This got Abab pretty steamed and he said "Didn't I tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me but evil?" (2 Chronicles 18:17). They ended up putting him in jail, and the battle was lost, just as the prophet said.

So what's my point? I think sometimes we only listen to the Lord when he is telling us what we want to hear. When he convicts us in his word and let's us know that there is evil inside us that only repentance and his blood can cleanse we stop up our ears. We end up listening to speakers or reading books that make us feel good or agree with us.

Now I'm not saying we need to beat ourselves up all the time and go around moping. But I am saying that we need to be careful to let all of God's word into our hearts and not just what sounds good. Those Precious Promises books are fine, but is the promise of Jesus in there that if you want to live a godly life you will suffer persecution? "Oh Lord, give me persecution today!" We don't pray that promise in; we don't stand on that promise.

Only good words make for great sound bites, but not for good lives.

Pastor Tom