Daily Reflections Feb 10, 2018

1 Kings 12: 26 - 32, 13: 33 - 34; Mark 8: 1 - 10.

“My Lord, you have made my hands Your tools to inspire many. Your words flow through my mind like ink flowing through the nib of a pen. Let Thy words be glorified as they obtain praise from Thy people and let not this pen sparkle even a bit before their eyes. May Thy words intrigue the hearts of Thy people and may they seek Thee in Spirit and truth as my role just fades away”.

We may never lift even our eyebrows to question the Lord for his actions. We are pleased to receive His blessings when God’s actions favour our status, but what if the Lord’s actions question our survival? Would God lift us up with wealth and glory and then allow us to crumble and face humiliation? Absolutely not! The Lord is the source of justice and He is more merciful than our minds could ever fathom. For those who grow to know the Lord, experiencing His Wonderful Love and His everlasting care will never doubt even for a moment that God would ever let them down. God is the creator and Lord of all that exists and it is rightfully His privilege to test any speck of His creation, whether in part or even entirely. The Lord may even delay to express and deliver His mercy, but in doing so, he is simply testing His subjects. And it does not matter if a person dies like Lazarus did because God raised him back to life through Jesus Christ after lying in the crypt for four days. So why did Jeroboam doubt God as in the first book of Kings 12: 26 - 32?

God took ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel and inspired them to give their allegiance to Jeroboam son of Nebat. It was by God’s influence in spirit and through His Holy Prophets that all those Israelites turned away from King David’s dynasty to appoint a simple worker serving under King Solomon to rule them.True faith should have inspired Jeroboam to continue trusting God and allow the people to continue with their pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the Passover and other feasts.Instead, Jeroboam grew insecure, distrustful and extremely selfish. He could not bear to think and doubt if the people would someday turn away from him and restore King Rehoboam as ruler of all Israel. Just like King Saul did, King Jeroboam took matters in his own hands to try to ensure his own survival and the survival of his own dynasty’s dominion over those ten northern tribes of Israel. Jeroboam instigated the Israelites to abandon their worship at Jerusalem and instead offer obeisance and devotion to idols that he installed at the ancient sites of Bethel and Dan.Moreover, Jeroboam used his cunning to appease the public by appointing any enthusiast as a priest at the pagan altars as the book of 1 Kings 13: 33 - 34 reads. It was God’s Ordinance that only a Levite should serve as a priest, but to maintain his own popularity among all the ten tribes, Jeroboam allowed them to display their zeal. He even fixed the festival days at these pagan altars clashing with the festivals at Jerusalem so that he could dissuade people from traveling to Jerusalem. And the masses of the Israelites, out of their stupidity, co-operated with his evil intent.This custom that Jeroboam initiated remained at play continuously putting the Israelites into grave sins for over two centuries until King Josiah destroyed the unholy altars and the entire pagan devotion.

When Jesus began to spread the Good News to the Israelites in Judea, the people were excited and their faith was renewed. The miracles, the signs, and the Messiah’s preaching was revolutionary and it sparked a fire in their hearts. They wanted to experience the touch of the Lord as their ancestors had experienced in the past. They wanted to listen to the Lord’s word as the ancient prophets had prophesied. And they wanted to be freed from slavery enforced upon them by their conquerors as the ancient Judges like Gideon, Samson, and Samuel had delivered them. But Jesus Christ, the Messiah was born to set them free and save them from their sin. And this truth only a few understood and even a smaller number were willing to accept. Yet, thousands of people followed Jesus wherever he went so that they could be healed of their ailments, their frailties and be delivered from the demonic evil spirits that enslaved their lives. Their faith inspired them to follow Jesus even into the wilderness, where they knew that they would find no food and no shelter from the harsh environment of the wilderness. They followed Jesus for days managing with whatever they had and Jesus healed them all, He heard them all and He spoke to them all. They knew that the Lord’s prophet was among them and they denied themselves all comfort to be healed. Seeing their faith Jesus felt pity for them and He fed more than four thousand people with seven loaves of bread and a few fish. No mathematical calculation can ever provide logic to this equation. It was a marvelous miracle and it astounded everybody. Later on, they collected seven baskets of crumbs of the left-overs from those seven loaves of bread.

Understand that God has the capability to bring the best out of anything and everything. All we need to do is to put our unshakeable faith in God, in Jesus Christ and in Their plan for our lives and the world. God will never let you down if you have faith and trust in His judgement. No matter how hopeless the situation may seem. The Lord will raise you out of it as a winner just as he raised Lazarus from the dead.For your trust and faith in Him, the Lord will even make your enemies sympathize with you and be kind to you.In everything, we experience we must cling to God’s mercy because His love for us is endless and His plan for us is always for our Salvation. We must learn to strengthen our faith at all times and continue to cling to God as he prepares us for Eternal Life.

- By Bro Maryo