Temptations Rethought

Oswald Chambers was a man of deep thought. He has an amazing way of looking at our daily spiritual walk through another facet of the prism that causes you to ponder its application to your soul. Such is the case as he discusses temptation. "Temptation is a suggested short cut to the realization of the highest at which I aim - not towards what I understand as evil, but towards what I understand as good." Naturally we don't think in those terms as we are struggling with temptation, yet are we not shortchanging ourselves as we are thinking that our way to meet a felt need that we deem as good is itself good and therefore satisfying. In reality we find that we are short changed and we are not satisfied, nor was it good. The felt need still exists and we are again searching for a way to satify that need. Oh that we would let "God lift us to a higher plane where we would face tempations of another order."

Careful Zeal

King Jehu came in like wildfire. He himself says, "Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord." (2 Kings 10:16) Even the annointing of Jehu as king gives you an idea that things are going to happen. Elisha sends one of the men form his company of prophets with the instructions to "take him (Jehu) in an inner room, pour a flask of oil over his head, say 'This is what the Lord says: I annoint you king over Israel,' and then open the door and run without delay." The Ahab and his son who preceeded Jehu were persistently wicked. From the moment Jehu left the inner room of annointing, he begins his sweep through Israel. He doesn't leave a descendent of Ahab alive. Next, he rounds up and destroys all the ministers of Baal under the pretense of calling an assembly to honor Baal. He is shrewd. Yet, by verse 31 the statement is made, "Jehu was not careful to keep the law of the Lord, the God of Israel with all his heart." He let some of the of the idol worship persist. Oh that in our zeal we don't overlook the careful to keep...with all our heart.