I CAME ACROSS A MOST PERPLEXING Scripture while reading 2 Kings. After 210 years of rebellion and idolatry, God used the Assyrians to scatter Israel and invade and live in Samaria. God sent lions into Samaria because of their evil and so they feared. The foreigners did not “understand” the ways of serving Yahweh, so the Assyrian king sent a priest to teach them. It was a heinous mixture of Levitical worship and paganism, not unlike the Exodus generation who made a golden calf and called it “Yahweh”.
The Scripture records, “They feared the LORD, yet served their own gods—according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away.” II Kings 17:33 The writer of Kings is in awe, recording it twice more within the same paragraph. As if to say, “How can this be?” They “served” God for fear of the lions and they served their own gods. They liked the latter best. They gave God formal worship, but they gave the others more active service. Sounds a lot like today’s Christian.
Do you give Jesus formal worship of prayer, praise, Bible reading and church attendance, shout out the name, “Jesus!” yet there is another god on the altar of your heart? Do you serve the god of self will, self righteousness, self glorifying, self driven choices and selfish ways while proclaiming the whole time, “I serve Jesus”? It cannot be God and self. It must be God or self. Have you truly come to the cross and been converted? The cross demands death. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. Be one thing or the other. #runyourrace
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