I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
When Solomon took the throne he called together all of the leaders of Israel to worship at the Tabernacle in Gibeon. David had moved the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, but the Tabernacle that was built in the wilderness was still at Gibeon. In addition, the bronze altar that had been built during the Israel’s time in the wilderness was there as well. Solomon offered 1,000 burnt offerings on the altar before the Tabernacle in Gibeon.
That night God appeared to Solomon and asked him what he would like God to give him. Solomon responded by asking God to give him the wisdom and knowledge to be a good ruler of God’s people, Israel. God was pleased that Solomon had not requested wealth, long life, death to his enemies, or honor. Because of this God promised Solomon that he would grant his request for the wisdom and knowledge to be a good ruler, and he would give him wealth, honor and a long life.
The passage goes on to recount Solomon’s correspondence with Hiram, king of Tyre, in preparation for building the Temple. It concludes with a describe the building of the Temple itself.
This passage teaches us the same lesson as Jesus taught in Matthew 6:33. If we make our priority to seek after God’s will in our life, God will grant us everything else that we need. If we make it our heart’s desire to do God’s will and to serve Him to the best of our ability, God will give us our heart’s desire and more. Once more I ask God to give me the desire to serve Him first and foremost of all of my desires. I wish to get to the point where my question of anything I want is, “How can I use this to serve the Lord?”
There is a lot of stuff in today’s passage, but for me, I want to highlight the following verses (Romans 6:12-14)
Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master,…
There is not much I can say to make the meaning of this any clearer or explain how it applies to my life. I do think this fits very well with what the Old Testament passage said to me. If we give ourselves completely to God and ask, “How can I use this to serve the Lord?” of everything we do, it will go a long way to helping us fulfill the other part of what Paul tells us: “do not give in to sinful desires.” I will strive to ask in every moment, “How can I serve the Lord, right now?”
This psalm has an important point to make. Every good thing we have comes from the Lord. I will follow the example of the psalmist and make the godly people in the land my heroes. They will be the ones that I will emulate and that I will encourage others to emulate. I will resist the temptation to follow other gods, because that is the route to destruction.
The Lord will guide me and instruct me. He is right beside me, ready to answer whenever I ask, “How can I serve the Lord right now?” I just need to listen (something I am not very good at).
Today’s proverb recommends that we get all of the advice that we can and take whatever instruction we are given, this is the route to always being able to determine the wise course of action. It does not say to follow all of the advice we are given, merely to get all of the advice that we can. The second proverb tells us that we can make all of the plans that we wish, but only those that serve God’s purpose will come to fruition. Which brings us back to my question for the day, “How can I serve the Lord right now?”