Category: Practical Apps

The Anticipation

~ Sowmya Gali

Job 38: 1 – 4

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and instruct Me? Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.”

1 Kings 19: 11 – 13

So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

If we have read the Bible a few times already, we are familiar with the layout of the various texts, the chronological order of the characters and stories. We look forward to the familiar stories while eagerly search for passages that we have not paid attention to in the past. If we are hungry souls, we seek out time to be in the Word. We are like little birds with our mouths open wide so our Heavenly Father would feed us with His precious Word. God, in His loving kindness, never disappoints us. He satisfies us to our hearts’ content.

And then there are instances, where if we are familiar with the passage, we know what is coming around the corner. We know the sequence of the timeline. We know the instances where God is going to speak to a man/woman. We anticipate with abated breath the words God is going to speak. However familiar they are, we are eager to read them again. We picture ourselves in the instance when God is speaking to a certain man.

Ride along with me for an imaginary journey where God spoke and we witnessed it through the Scriptures! Imagine watching God say the Word and the world and everything was created. Imagine watching God fashion man with His own hands. Imagine hearing God command Noah to build the ark. Imagine hearing God call Abraham out of Chaldea and the promise of heirs as numerous as the stars in the sky. Imagine viewing the wrestling match between Jacob and the ‘angel’ of God. Imagine being near the burning bush when God spoke to Moses. Imagine being a witness when Gideon demands a sign from God. Imagine the terror the prophets of God experienced whenever God spoke to them. Imagine seeing what John the Baptist saw after he baptized Jesus. Imagine being fearful perceiving along with the disciples Jesus walking on the water.

Job had a very special encounter with the Lord. Here he was pitying himself for all the evil that has befallen him and a few of his friends joined his pity party to console him. None could console him nor give a valid reason for the evil that visited Job. Finally, when God spoke, God challenged Job to answer His questions with good reasons. Job had no valid answers to give to God as to why God shouldn’t allow such dread to come to him. If he trusted in God Almighty, he should have trusted in His will completely without a question. Job was left speechless and surrendered to God once again.

Now imagine standing next to Elijah as he is eagerly anticipating to meet God. When God commanded him to go up on the mountain, Elijah might have thought He would hear an audible booming sound from heaven. He sought the Lord in a mountain-wrecking, rock-breaking wind but the Lord wasn’t there. Imagine the terror Elijah must have experienced as he witnessed the powerful wind. Then he experienced a powerful earthquake, followed by a fire. God wasn’t there in them either. Confused at all these, he probably hid in a cave. God then speaks to Elijah through a gentle blowing of the wind – a breeze. Elijah, unable to behold the awesomeness of God, covered his face with a mantle. The anticipation, the anxiety, and the nervousness that Elijah must have gone through knowing that God is going to speak to him and not knowing how He is going to speak to Him.

What are we going to do when we are in such a situation? We are trusting God to speak to us but we aren’t aware of how He is going to speak to us. We may not hear Him speak like He did with people in the Old Testament. Yet, our Lord speaks. He speaks to us through His Word which we hold in our hands every day. He speaks to us through the Holy Spirit, who indwells us. Are we in anticipation each day that our Lord is going to speak to us through His word? Are we ready to receive the Word when He speaks? Are we willing to surrender to His will when we know for sure that He spoke?

Dear Saint of God, imagine now being raptured with the other saints when Jesus appears in mid-Heaven to be with Him for all eternity. Imagine ruling with our King Jesus for a thousand years. Imagine witnessing the annihilation of all evil from all creation. Imagine observing the new heavens and the new earth finally revealed. Imagine the eternity we will spend with our Savior Redeemer, our only true love, King of kings, Lord of Lords, the Lamb of God, the Bridegroom, the Lion of Judah. The anticipation of finally entering into the eternal Kingdom to be with our Lord is exciting beyond words. May we live in anticipation of what awaits us beyond this earthly frame!

High Places

~ Sowmya Gali

1 Kings 15: 11 – 14

11 Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did his father David. 12 And he banished the [d]perverted persons from the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. 13 Also he removed Maachah his grandmother from being queen mother, because she had made an obscene image of [e]Asherah. And Asa cut down her obscene image and burned it by the Brook Kidron. 14 But the [f]high places were not removed. Nevertheless Asa’s heart was loyal to the Lord all his days.

1 Kings 22: 41 – 43

41 Jehoshaphat the son of Asa had become king over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel. 42 Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi. 43 And he walked in all the ways of his father Asa. He did not turn aside from them, doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Nevertheless the high places were not taken away, for the people offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places. 44 Also Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel.

2 Kings 12: 1 – 3

In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash[a] became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba. 2 Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. 3 But the [b]high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

2 Kings 14: 1 – 4

In the second year of Joash the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, became king. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. 3 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like his father David; he did everything as his father Joash had done. 4 However the [a]high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

All the kings of Judah listed above followed the Lord, obeyed His commandments, and did right in the sight of the Lord. However, one aspect remains common among all of them. Despite their loyalty to the Lord, they failed to remove the high places from the land. What are these high places? The high places were places on hill tops, or mountain tops or some elevated location, where the people offered incense, sacrificed and worshipped the idols. These were places of evil.

These kings despite their devotion to the Lord, failed to obliterate these high places. They probably had family members or people who were liberal in their views of God. These kings were probably trying to be politically and/or culturally correct in order to appease that section of the populace. These kings operated under fear that someone from within their kingdom is going to seize the throne from them if they imposed their strong religious beliefs on the rest of the people. In order to preserve their kingship and have peace, they compromised by allowing the high places to remain.

2 Kings 18: 1 – 7

Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi[a] the daughter of Zechariah. 3 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done.

4 He removed the [b]high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the [c]wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it [d]Nehushtan. 5 He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him. 6 For he held fast to the Lord; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses. 7 The Lord was with him; he prospered wherever he went.

2 Kings 23: 3 – 8

Then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant. 4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the articles that were made for Baal, for [a]Asherah, and for all [b]the host of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5 Then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem, and those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the [c]constellations, and to all the host of heaven. 6 And he brought out the wooden[d] image from the house of the Lord, to the Brook Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it at the Brook Kidron and ground it to ashes, and threw its ashes on the graves of the common people. 7 Then he tore down the ritual [e]booths of the [f]perverted persons that were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the wooden image. 8 And he brought all the priests from the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba; also he broke down the high places at the gates which were at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were to the left of the city gate.

Kings Hezekiah and Josiah followed the Lord with utmost devotion. They not only got rid of all the idols, priests, but defiled the high places. Their zeal for the Lord is comparable to that of David’s. They were not trying to be politically or culturally appropriate but they were trying to be righteous in the sight of the Lord. They did not live in fear of a mutiny. But they trusted in the Lord completely. They recognized that God appointed them the kings of His people. They purged every trace of idolatry or evil from the land. They even appointed enforcers who closely monitored of any kind of idolatry in the land.

The Lord blessed these two kings for their utmost devotion. Not only did they obey the Lord and His commandments, they ensured that every person in the land of Judah also obeyed the Lord and followed His commandments. The Lord and His commandments became the Law of the land. These kings experienced prosperity, victory over enemies, and peace in the land. The Lord protected them from invading armies. The Lord even extended King Hezekiah’s life by 15 years. These kings are exemplary in their devotion and obedience to the Lord.

We, as believers of the Lord Jesus Christ, are also devoted to the Lord. We may be victorious in the most obvious sins but we fail to remove those high places from our lives, our hearts and minds. We are still compromised in that way. There may be attitudes, behaviors, addictions, weaknesses, and sins that we fail to overcome. We still have not surrendered those aspects of our lives that we hold so close, despite knowing that we should give up those sins. Sometimes we sail in two boats: trying to appease others and  please God at the same time. Sometimes even our devotion to our careers, families, sports, hobbies, etc., can come in the way of our utmost devotion to the Lord.

Dear Saint of God, let us destroy those high places in our lives, our hearts and our minds completely like King Hezekiah and King Josiah and place our Lord on the throne of our hearts and minds. May He be our utmost priority. Let us not become compromised and turn into the church of Laodecia. “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither [k]cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”(Revelation 3: 15 – 16). Let us ensure that the high places are occupied by the Lord. Let us ensure that our utmost devotion is to our Lord alone.