What Is Daily Devotions Mean to You?

To me, Daily Devotions mean Praying and Reading the Word of God early in the morning to start the day by thanking God for waking me up and to bless my day and also to look at me with favor as I go my daily routine.

What about you? Keep reading our daily devotions to get you busy with the things of God and in the fear of God always.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 2022

TEXT: 2 Kings 23:15-27

15. Next, he took care of the altar at the shrine in Bethel that Jeroboam son of Nebat had built – the same Jeroboam who had led Israel into a life of sin. He tore apart the altar, burned down the shrine leaving it in ashes, and then lit fire to the phallic Asherah-pole.

16. As Josiah looked over the scene, he noticed the tombs on the hillside. He ordered the bones removed from the tombs and had them cremated on the ruined altars, desacralizing the evil altars. This was a fulfillment of the word of God spoken by the Holy Man years before when Jeroboam had stood by the altar at the sacred convocation.

17. Then the king said, “And that memorial stone – whose is that?” The men from the city said, “That’s the grave of the Holy Man who spoke the message against the altar at Bethel that you have just justified.”

18. Josiah said, “Don’t trouble his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet from Samaria.

19. But Josiah hadn’t finished. He now moved through all the towns of Samaria where the kings of Israel had built neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines, shrines that had so angered God. He tore the shrines down and left them in ruins – just as at Bethel.

20. He killed all the priests who had conducted the sacrificed and cremated them on their own altars, thus desacralizing the altars. Only then did Josiah return to Jerusalem.

21. The king now commanded the people, “Celebrate the Passover to God, your God, exactly as directed in this Book of the Covenant.”

22. This commanded Passover had not been celebrated since the days that the judges judged Israel – none of the kings of Israel and Judah had celebrated it.

23. But in the eighteenth year of the rule of King Josiah this very Passover was celebrated to God in Jerusalem.

24. Josiah scrubbed the place clean and trashed spirit-mediums, sorcerers, domestic gods, and carved figures – all the vast accumulation of foul and obscene relics and images on display everywhere you looked in Judah and Jerusalem. Josiah did this in obedience to the words of God’s Revelation written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in The Temple of God.

25. There was no king to compare with Josiah – neither before nor after – a king who turned in total and repentant obedience to God, heart and mind and strength, following the instructions revealed to and written by Moses. The world would never again see a king like Josiah.

26. But despite Josiah, God’s hot anger did not cool; the raging anger ignited by Manasseh burned unchecked.

27. And God, not swerving in his judgment, gave sentence: “I’ll remove Judah from my presence in the same way I removed Israel. I’ll turn my back on this city, Jerusalem, that I chose, and even from this Temple of which I said, ‘My Name lives here.’”

(The Message Holy Bible)

TOPIC: GOD’S IMPARTIALITY

King Josiah continued with his reformation of the Southern Kingdom, Judah, without slowing down. He did not favor some above others in the course of the ongoing revival. He purged Jerusalem of all that he considered to be impure and idolatrous, including removing and burning the bones of dead people he considered an abomination to the land.

In spite of this massive, very impressive, genuine repentance and purging of the land, God reminded them that “I will remove Judah also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple about which I said, ‘My name shall be there’” (v. 27). God explained that He will do this “because of all that Manasseh had done to arouse my anger” (v. 26).

In chapter 21, Manasseh’s story showed that he led Judah into an unprecedented rebellion and idolatry second to none. He was the son King Hezekiah gave birth to when God added 15 more years to him because he prayed against God’s will for his death.

God concluded that such evil can only be wiped out through total cleansing of the land.

QUESTION: Do know that God’s righteous judgment is impartial?

PRAYER: I don’t want to be the cause of people suffering the consequences of sin and evil, so help me to live above reproach, in Jesus name, Amen.