What Will Your Decision Be

And when the Lord saw them humble themselves he sent Shemaiah to tell them, "Because you have humbled yourselves, I will not completely destroy you; some will escape. I will not use Shishak to pour out my anger upon Jerusalem. But you must pay annual tribute to him. Then you will realize how much better it is to serve me than to serve him!" 2 Chronicles 12:7-8 The Living Bible

Good Morning Girlfriends:

Time and time again we see so many accounts that were written in the Bible, where there were good Kings who listened and were led by God, and there were those who led by their own selfish desires, this account in 2 Chronicles is no different. King Solomon was a good King, a very wealthy King, who reigned in Jerusalem over all of Israel for forty and when he passed away, his son Rehoboam, became the new king.

It was told that King Solomon had been a hard king, so the people came to the new king, King Rehoboam with a statement if you will or more like a demand, that if he would be easier on the people and they would stay with him. King Rehoboam went to the elders who counseled his father Solomon to discuss their demand. With wise counsel, they had told him that if he wanted to be their king, he would have to give them a favorable reply and treat them with kindness. Then he decided to ask the young men that was of his age what they though about the matter, and their advice was to tell the people that he would treat them even harder than what his father did. When the people came back for the Kings reply, he had rejected the counsel of the elders and went with the young men's advice to treat the people with harshness and that he would be harder on them that his father had been. After hearing the kings response, the people deserted him and they left to go home.

King Rehoboam was getting a huge army together to declare war against the rest of Israel in an attempt to reunite with them. God had sent a prophet to the king and the people not to fight against their brothers, because He was behind the rebellion, so they obeyed and went back home. The king worked to build strong walls around the city to protect himself. King Jeroboam heard of their retreat, he then had fired the priests, telling them to stop being priests of the Lord, the priests and laymen left their homes and moved back to Judah under King Rehoboam. Then King Jeroboam had brought in other priests that would encourage the people to worship idols and sacrifice to carved statues. What a mixed up mess.

For the three years, King Rehoboam had made an earnest effort to serve the Lord, but when he was at a place in his life of popularity and power, he abandoned the Lord, and the people followed along with him in his sin. In his fifth year of reigning as king, he was attacked by a huge army and was quickly conquered. The prophet "Shemaiah" came with a word from the Lord saying that because King Rehoboam had forsaken God, so God had forsaken him and abandoned him to King Shishak. After hearing the words from the Lord, the king and the leaders confessed their sins and agreed that the Lord had every right for allowing what He did. When God had saw that they humbled themselves as well as the king, the Lord's anger was turned aside, and He did not send total destruction upon them, in fact after the invasion the economy of Judah remained strong.

Girlfriends, I know there are many times that we go through some rough times, some hard knocks in life, and it is always at that moment in time that we have a decision to make of which way we will go, what are we going to do with our life. For me I have to say, it was when I was in another marriage that was not going so good, expecting another baby was making it hard, but it was right at that point in my life, when I realized that things were not getting any better for me, having previous marriages, I knew something had to change. It was when I totally surrendered my entire life to God, kind of making a bargain with Him, that if the baby was born healthy and okay, that I would serve Him and never look back, and that is just what I had done. I have to let you know that God had given me a dream of this sweet little baby's face, and when I had given birth to my little baby girl, that was the face I had seen in my dream, God is so good.

I'm sure you remember that if you had done something against your parents rules that there would be a consequence, well it is the same with God. There are times He is trying to get our attention, and He will allow things to happen in our lives for us to wake up in order to get things going in the right direction. God is always the right direction for our lives, sometimes when we are living in the world's way we do not see it, but when God allows things to happen to get our attention, to redirect us, that is when things start to look up. It doesn't always mean everything will be sunshine and easy, but at least we know that God is a good God (Psalm 100:5) and He has wonderful plans for us. (Jer. 29:11)

As I reflect back on my life before I surrendered my life fully back to Him, I can think back on the different times He had been trying to get my attention and I wasn't listening. Sometimes He may allow us to get in a difficult situation, and it is us who put ourselves there, in order for us to call out to Him to let Him know we will surrender our life. Just like back in this account of King Rehoboam, God had wise people in his life who gave wise counsel, but he refused to take it. God has put people of wisdom in our lives to guide us in the right way because they have been through things before, so they are placed there to help us to make wise decisions. If you are facing a situation today, and you are being given wise counsel, take it into consideration what that person is saying to you. God may be using them to help you, to help lead you in the right direction, in the direction that leads you to Jesus. Girlfriends, if there is just one of you who has never surrendered your life to Jesus, today is your special day to say yes to Him. What will your answer be?

Let's Pray,

Father God, I thank You and praise You for allowing the things in my life that turned me around to You. Lord, I lift up that dear soul to You today that is facing a situation that is not fair in their eyes, they need help, they need help from the one and only one that can get their situation turned around in a quick way. Lord, let that one who is reading this today be the one who surrenders their life over to You, so that You can show up on the scene and show them of Your great and wonderful power. Lord, as they do, I am in faith believing that You will turn things around so fast that it will make their head spin. Lord the glory always belongs only to You and I give You praise and thanks in advance for Your faithfulness in Jesus mighty name, Amen.

Be blessed and pass the blessings on to others as you share this word. Thank you in advance.