{"id":3373,"date":"2019-05-30T20:00:46","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T03:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=3373"},"modified":"2019-05-26T20:53:44","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T03:53:44","slug":"2kings_17_24-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/2kings_17_24-33\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep It Simple and Seek to Please God Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 Kings 17:24-33 \u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today’s passage is 2 Kings 17:24-33. Let’s go!<\/p>\n

2 Kings\u00a017:25\u00a0(NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n25\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0When they first lived there, they did not worship the\u00a0LORD; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 24-26:\u00a0 Shalmaneser king of Assyria has deported the Israelites from Samaria (Israel’s capital city) and replaces them with people from foreign lands.\u00a0 These foreigners do not worship the Lord in Samaria and are attacked, and in some cases killed, by lions.\u00a0 This is the third case in 1 Kings and 2 Kings where someone is killed by a lion.<\/p>\n

What can we learn in this case?\u00a0\u00a0When we do not worship the Lord but instead focus on other things, we become vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy, who is described as a lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

2 Kings\u00a017:33\u00a0(NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n33\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0They worshiped the\u00a0LORD, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 27-33:\u00a0 In hope of ending the lion attacks, the king of Assyria orders that an Israelite priest be sent back to Samaria to teach the people how to worship the Lord (v27-28).\u00a0 After receiving this teaching, the foreigners living in Samaria worship the Lord but they also continue to worship the gods from their own national groups and set up shrines in the names of those gods (v29-33).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0When you try to put God first while also putting other things first, all you get is frustration, stress and a complicated mess.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>We were made to “worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.” (Matthew\u00a04:10)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Are you trying to worship and serve two things at once?\u00a0 As Jesus says, you can’t serve two masters.\u00a0 Otherwise you will hate the one and be devoted to the other.\u00a0 Keep it simple and seek to please God alone.<\/p>\n

Lord, no matter where I am, may I be committed to worshiping You alone.\u00a0 In my life may You have no rival or competitor.\u00a0 May You alone take the throne.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today’s passage is 2 Kings 17:24-33. Let’s go!<\/p>\n

2 Kings\u00a017:25\u00a0(NIV)\u00a0
\n25\u00a0\u00a0When they first lived there, they did not worship the\u00a0LORD; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On verses 24-26:\u00a0 Shalmaneser king of Assyria has deported the Israelites from Samaria (Israel’s capital city) and replaces them with people from foreign lands.\u00a0 These foreigners do not worship the Lord in Samaria and are attacked, and in some cases killed, by lions.\u00a0 This is the third case in 1 Kings and 2 Kings where someone is killed by a lion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What can we learn in this case?\u00a0\u00a0When we do not worship the Lord but instead focus on other things, we become vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy, who is described as a lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

2 Kings\u00a017:33\u00a0(NIV)\u00a0
\n33\u00a0\u00a0They worshiped the\u00a0LORD, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3375,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373\/revisions\/3375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}