Last night I enjoyed being a the home of Doug and Pat Powell for a special small group meeting with my long time friends John and Yvonne Childers. My trips to the Philippines were in conjunction with a Pastor’s Conference the Childers’ conducted in northern Luzon. It was good to hear a report of recent developments among the pastors and churches in that part of the world.<\/p>\n
I spent the night with Christian and Bridget. This morning, before returning to Fort Collins, I was able to attend Riley and Caed’s soccer game. I also took Riley shopping for his birthday present. Our oldest grandchild is now nine.<\/p>\n
BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… <\/strong>“<\/em>Hezekiah invited all these people to come to the Temple of the Lord<\/span> in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover for the Lord<\/span>, the God of Israel…the people in Jerusalem agreed to celebrate the Passover in the second month.\u00a0<\/span> They could not celebrate it at the normal time, because not enough priests had made themselves ready to serve the Lord<\/span>, and the people had not yet gathered in Jerusalem.\u00a0<\/span><\/em>This plan satisfied King Hezekiah and all the people.”<\/em> 2 Chronicles 30:1-4 NCV<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n We read more details about Hezekiah and more often than any King of Judah. He wasn’t perfect and his pride caused problems at the end of his reign, but he was devoted to serving the Lord. Under his father’s reign the Temple had been shut up and sealed. One of the first things Hezekiah did was to reopen the Temple and have the sacred items replaced.<\/p>\n As an act of dedication and returning to the Lord, he invited all of God’s people from Israel to Judah (Dan to Beersheba<\/span>) to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. The Passover which was the most important feast to God’s people, had not been celebrated since the days of Solomon.<\/p>\n What is interesting to observe is that this event was not at the “perfect”<\/em> time with “prepared”<\/em> people. The time of the Passover was delayed because the Priests were not purified according to the Law of Moses and because all the people outside of Jerusalem had not arrived.<\/p>\n This is a good example of how the “perfect and become the enemy of the good.” <\/em>Celebrating the Passover with the properly prepared Priests and with the people present was more important than being held hostage to the precise time or date.<\/p>\n This celebration was a call to “return to the Lord.” <\/em>Here is what “invite”<\/em> said, “…people of Israel, return to the Lord<\/span>, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Then God will return to you who are still alive…<\/span><\/em>Don\u2019t be stubborn as your ancestors were, but obey the Lord<\/span> willingly.<\/span>..<\/em>Come back to the Lord<\/span>….The Lord<\/span> your God is kind and merciful. He will not turn away from you if you return to him.”<\/em> (2 Chron. 30:6-9 NCV)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The next issue arose was from people who had not properly “purified”<\/em> themselves for the Passover in violation of the Law. But we see Hezekiah interceding for these people, much like Moses did for God’s people in the past.<\/p>\n “So Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, \u201cLord<\/span>, you are good. You are the Lord<\/span>, the God of our ancestors. Please forgive all those who try to obey you even if they did not make themselves clean as the rules of the Temple command.\u201d\u00a0<\/span> The Lord<\/span> listened to Hezekiah\u2019s prayer, and he healed the people.”<\/span><\/em> (2 Chron. 30:18-20 NCV)<\/p>\n Working through all these challenges Hezekiah “got it done.”<\/em> His desire to honor the Lord in re-instituting the Passover celebration was accomplished. He considered the challenges and made the decisions\u00a0 that allowed the celebration to take place with as many of God’s people in Jerusalem together. He trust in the Lord’s mercy and this was the result,<\/p>\n “…they celebrated with joy for seven more days.<\/span>..There was much joy in Jerusalem, because there had not been a celebration like this since the time of Solomon son of David and king of Israel.\u00a0<\/span><\/em>The priests and Levites stood up and blessed the people, and God heard them because their prayer reached heaven, his holy home.”<\/em> (2\u00a0 Chron. 30:26,26 NCV)<\/span><\/p>\n As the people experienced God’s pleasure in their obedience they wanted the celebration to continue; and so it was extended for seven more days. There was joy, the priests and Levites did what they were called to do. The people were blessed and their prayers were heard.<\/p>\n I believe the Lord showed His faithfulness to Solomon when He said, “If my people…humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked way, then I will hear from heave and heal their land.”<\/em> (2 Chron. 7:14)<\/p>\n Hezekiah accomplished what Kings before him had never done. He took the action necessary for the good of the people. He realized that their only hope for survival and life was to turn to the Lord. The Lord honored his heart and the hearts of the people and brought them a season joy, peace and prosperity.<\/p>\n What is important is the attitude of our hearts and our willingness to turn to the Lord. Our prayers and our worship don’t need to be perfect. We just need to “get it done”<\/em> regardless of the timing. We need to take the actions that demonstrate our need for the Lord’s mercy, blessing and provision. When we do, we will experience the Lord’s joy, peace and pleasure in our life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last night I enjoyed being a the home of Doug and Pat Powell for a special small group meeting with my long time friends John and Yvonne Childers. My trips to the Philippines were in conjunction with a Pastor’s Conference the Childers’ conducted in northern Luzon. It was good to hear a report of recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kensummers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kensummers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kensummers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kensummers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kensummers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2429"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kensummers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2432,"href":"https:\/\/kensummers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429\/revisions\/2432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kensummers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kensummers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kensummers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}