The Puzzling Life of King Asa

Asa, the King of Judah, "did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God." (II Chron. 14:1) He was a good king who removed idolatry from his people and commanded them to seek and obey the Lord. Asa even deposed his own grandmother because she had made a detestable Asherah pole (an idolatrous symbol)!! When he went to war, the Lord was with him and gave Asa the victory. Everything went well for Asa until his thirty-sixth year of reign.

Something changed. Asa changed. Asa and his men were surrounded, but instead of going to God for help, as he had always done before, he took silver and gold and bought help from a foreign king. God was not pleased!

Hanani, the seer, told Asa that, because he hadn't relied on the Lord, he would be at war from then on. Asa became so enraged that he put Hanani in prison! What happened to King Asa? The clue is in the famous line uttered by Hanani,

"For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those who hearts are fully committed to Him." (II Chron. 16:9)

Actually, the KJV is my favoite. "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him."

So it seems the problem with Asa is that he had lost his wholehearted devotion to God. He had ruled Judah well for thirty-five years, but had allowed his zeal for the Lord to fizzle at the end of his life. This is a sad story!! It's sad because it didn't have to end this way. What made Asa lose his wholehearted devotion to the Lord? Bitterness? Unforgiveness? A spirit of anger? The Bible doesn't tell us exactly what happened, but let's learn a valuable lesson from the life of Asa. Let's keep ourselves aglow and burning with the Spirit!

The end of his life came in the thirty-ninth year of his reign. Asa had a disease in his feet, but he refused to seek the Lord for healing. Compare this to Hezekiah, who sought the Lord, and He added fifteen more years to Hezekiah's life. Asa sought the physicians only, but not the Lord, so he died. He had lost his wholehearted devotion to the Lord.

If you are serious . . .

Yesterday I ran across this passage in the Bible, and it really spoke to me about our current situation in our own country! I'm sharing this account from The Message because the meaning is so clear.

Then Samuel addressed the house of Israel: "If you are truly serious about coming back to God, clean house. Get rid of the foreign gods and fertility goddesses, ground yourselves firmly in God, worship Him and Him alone, and He'll save you from Philistine oppression."

They did it. They got rid of the gods and goddesses, the images of Baal and Ashtoreth, and gave their exclusive attention and service to God.

Next Samuel said, "Get everybody together at Mizpah and I'll pray for you."

So everyone assembled at Mizpah. They drew water from the wells and poured it out before God in a ritual of cleansing. They fasted all day and prayed, "We have sinned against God."

So Samuel prepared the Israelites for holy war there at Mizpah.

1 Samuel 7:3-6

Clean house! Isn't that great? I'm in the mood to do some spiritual housecleaning. I want to get rid of all the weights and sins that are so easily besetting me. I want to put God first in my life!

They fasted all day and prayed, "We have sinned against God." Again, we see those three elements - fasting, prayer and repentance - are necessary for the nation to get right with God.
It's not enough to pray; we must fast. It's not enough to fast; we must repent of our own sins and the sins of our nation. We are waking up and we will arise!!

Our God is a covenant maker!

Hosea 4:6 tells us "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Our lack of Bible knowledge keeps us from God's richest blessings. We have to renew our minds to the Word! We have the blessings of God available to us, but we may be living in spiritual poverty.

Let's examine how God promises Abraham great blessings in Genesis 12:1-3.

" Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

Wow!! After several years, Abraham hadn't received the full extent of God's Word to him, so he asked the Lord, "O, Lord GOD, how may I KNOW that I will possess it?" (Gen. 15:8)

God answered him by establishing a covenant with him immediately! A covenant is the most binding commitment that two can make. The Lord was making the most powerful statement possible that He would bless Abraham. He wanted Abraham to know that He was serious about fulfilling His promise. God is a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God.

Because of covenant we can also know that God wants to bless us. Indeed, He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. We secure His blessings through covenant. Since we've entered into a covenant relationship with the Lord through Jesus, we can learn to hold fast to that covenant. Then we can live increasingly in the fullness of the blessings we have inherited in Christ.

Our covenant reveals how deeply God loves us and is committed to us. It also reveals to us that God is completely faithful to His own word. God's covenants are the foundation for His blessing!!

These are perilous times!

We've seen horrible natural disasters in our lifetimes, yet there are more disasters to come. Our country has fought many wars, but there are more wars to come. Terrorism has occurred in our country, and more terrorist acts will be perpetrated in the future. The Word of God tells us that evil will become worse and worse in these last days.

Some of these events can be stopped if we will fast, pray and repent! God's promise in 2 Chron. 7:14 says, "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." Fasting and prayer are not enough - we must really repent of our nation's sins.

Ask the Lord to give you revelations of trouble on the horizon. Repent, fast and seek God in fervent prayer. In Ezekiel, God looked for someone, anyone, who would make up the hedge and stand in the gap, but he found nobody!! We can become a bridge of intercession for our nation and all nations. The Lord can rebuild spiritual hedges of protection around us. The Lord is searching for people who will seek His face. He wants to tell us what the terrorists are plotting. Are we willing to listen?

After all, greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world (I John 4:4). The Holy Spirit within us is our Helper, Friend, Comforter, Advisor, Strengthener, Ally, Advocate. He brings us into the presence of God. He convicts us of sin. The Holy Spirit motivates us to live a pure and holy life. He helps us pray and worship. He teaches us and guides us. The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth . . . and shows us things to come!! Yes, He shows us things to come. Hosea 4:6 states that God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. But it doesn't have to be that way.

We desire to be the women God has called us to be, not lukewarm, not half-hearted. We have within us the authority and power to withstand every temptation, every trial, every affliction, and every hour of darkness that is coming upon the earth. We can overcome instead of being defeated.

Let's not become discouraged and lose faith when we see these things happening. We can win every battle through surrender and obedience to the Holy Spirit. Jesus, our Lord and Savior, has made us more than conquerors!

Beth Moore on Saturday afternoon

Beth Moore taught on learning to mind your "spiritual gut." John 14:15 states, "He will give you another counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth." The Holy Spirit is within each of us. He gives us supernatural power to KNOW. In the New Testament everyone who believes in Jesus Christ and is born again has the Holy Spirit living in them. Allow Him to give you spiritual discernment. Then go with it, even when you can't explain it.

II Cor. 2:16 tells us "We have the mind of Christ." These are epic days on the Kingdom calendar, so we need to wise up. The Bible warns us that there will be terrible times in the last days (II Tim. 3:1). People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. They will have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof (II Tim. 3:12,13) In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse - deceiving and being deceived.

Let's watch out that we are not deceived. The enemy disguises himself as an angel of light. Listen to the Holy Spirit! We want to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. We want to walk in the Holy Spirit. We will live our lives on purpose for Christ.

Priscilla Shirer

On Saturday morning Priscilla spoke on Ephesians 3:20,21. "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to His power that is at work in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations foirever and ever, amen." We already have all the right resources. We just need to open our eyes and see! Now is the time to connect our impossible situations with God's ability. The power of God is "dunamis" - the word "dynamite" derives from this. The dynamite power of God is beyond our beyond.

God's power is:
more than we can ask or think
abundantly more than we can ask or think.
exceeding abundantly more than we can ask or think!!!

We need to take the lid off our God box. When there's a lid on your God box, your ability to accept God's power in your life is limited! Our God is an immeasuably MORE God.

All things are possible with God!!!!!

Notes from Kay Arthur at Deeper Still

Kay taught us on Hebrews - the entire book of Hebrews! "In these last days God has spoken to us by His son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe." (Hebrews 1:2) In these last days, we must pay careful attention to what we have heard from the Lord, so that we will not drift away!

Now is our hour. God is raising up an army! We are to fix our eyes on Jesus and persevere! We will not shrink back and be destroyed, but we will believe and be saved! Even if we suffer greatly, we won't quit. We will receive rich rewards! The Israelites in the desert blew it because they did not mix the Word of God with faith.

The Word + faith = the Rest of God

Of God's Kingdom there is no end. Let's be the women of God who will not look to the right or to the left. Our eyes are fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We will stand our ground for the Lord! We will grow up so that we can get off the milk and eat solid (spiritual) food. We will grow up!