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July 19th
The Bible reading today is in 2 Kings 18:1-8, 2 Chronicles 29-31, Psalm 48.
The reading today speaks to my heart. It talks about spiritual leadership. Some inspiring and some not so much.
For almost 50 years, I've been a husband to Bev. In Christ, God has given me the role of spiritual leader in our marriage and family. For 48+ years I've been a pastor in the local church. In Christ, God gave me the role of spiritual leader in 6 churches.
A spiritual leader at home, and a spiritual leader in the church. Some of it good. Some of it not so much.
Let us listen to God’s testimony of Judah’s young king Hezekiah...and then we will listen to God’s testimony of some of the priests.
“In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was “Abi the daughter of Zechariah”. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. He “removed” the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).
“He trusted in the Lord”, the God of Israel, so that “there was none like him” among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he “held fast” to the Lord. He “did not depart” from following him, but “kept the “commandments” that the Lord commanded Moses.
And the “Lord was with him”; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and “would not serve him”. He “struck down” the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.”
