One Year Bible
Old Testament passage for Saturday, June 15, 2013: I Kings 14:1-15:24
11 Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did his father David. 12 And he banished the 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 Asherah. And Asa cut down her obscene image and burned it by the Brook Kidron. 14 …. Asa’s heart was loyal to the Lord all his days. 15 He also brought into the house of the Lord the things which his father had dedicated, and the things which he himself had dedicated: silver and gold and utensils. I Kings 15:11-15 (NKJV)
Asa was one of the good kings in the history of the Jewish nation. It is important to observe the two things that he did: 1) he CONTINUED the good things from his family, and 2) he CANCELLED the bad things from his family.
We are all called to do exactly what Asa did.
Each one of us is a mixture of good and bad. We have been blessed by our fathers (according to the flesh) with many good things. For that we honor them and bless them according to the Scripture and according to our experience. But there are many things that come to us through our family tree that are also negative. In this respect, we are all called to do as the Scripture describes in Jeremiah 15. “If you return to me then I will bring you back; you shall stand before Me; if you take out the precious from the vile, you shall be as My mouth….” We are all called to extract “the precious from the vile.” We are called to take the good things from our family lineage and BUILD on them. We are also called to CANCEL the generational curses and negative patterns we have inherited. Each one of us is called to be a BLESSING RELEASER and a CURSE STOPPER.
Asa recognized the godly heritage that came to him from his father David. He had a heart loyal to God just like his forefather David. But, He also found things in his heritage that were despicable. Solomon had established pagan worship of the most perverse sort. Asa set about a process of HOUSE CLEANING.
I behooves each one of us to do the same thing. Thank God for the fantastic things our fathers have handed down to us. It is important to me that I write this blog on the eve of Father’s Day 2013 (Sunday, June 16).
Asa knew how to take the wonderful aspects of godly heritage and build on them. He also knew how to cancel the bad parts of family history that plague the advance of the Kingdom of God in our lives. May each of us be like Asa.