I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 15-18.

As Asa returned from his victory over the Ethiopian army, he was confronted by a prophet of God, but not in an accusatory or otherwise negative way.  Rather, the prophet confronted him with a call to carry on with his reliance and dependence on God.  Asa responded to both God’s aid in the battle and the exhortation of the prophet.  He removed the idols from all of the towns which were under his control and repaired the altar at the entrance to the Temple.  The writer tells us that many people moved from the Northern Kingdom into Asa’s territory when they saw that God was with Asa.  That tells me that Asa’s reforms had an economic impact as well as a spiritual one.  Asa followed up his other reforms by calling the people to gather in Jerusalem.  At this gathering, the people dedicated themselves to seek the Lord.  We see here that God uses good times and bad times to call people to Himself.  In other passages we see how when things are bad, people call out to God for rescue and turn away from evil.  Here times had been good and they had just won a great victory over a powerful threat.  This caused the people to praise God and have a renewed dedication to serving Him.  We have no excuse for not praising God with all of our being.

Unfortunately, late in his reign King Asa forgot the lessons he should have learned from these early events.  When King Baasha of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, made war against him, rather than once more relying on God, Asa bribed the king of Aram to attack Israel.   When King Asa first took the throne and faced adversity, he did not feel like he had any choice but to rely on the Lord.  Later in his reign he felt like he did not need to call on the Lord when faced once more with adversity.  He thought he had a better way to solve this new problem.  We are all tempted by such things when we get established in life.  We think that now we have the resources to stand on our own two feet and no longer need to rely on God.  I pray that I never again make that mistake.