{"id":34859,"date":"2025-02-28T22:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T05:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=34859"},"modified":"2025-02-18T15:21:37","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T22:21:37","slug":"1-kings-14_1-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/1-kings-14_1-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Pretend. Be Real With God."},"content":{"rendered":"

1 Kings 14:1-20 \u00a0(CLICK HERE FOR\u00a0BIBLE VERSES)<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is 1 Kings 14:1-20.\u00a0 As usual,\u00a0I encourage you to open your Bible and read the passage yourself first.\u00a0 See what you can glean with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help. Then read the GAME sharing below.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

1 Kings 14:1-6 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill,
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0and Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go, disguise yourself, so you won’t be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there–the one who told me I would be king over this people.
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Take ten loaves of bread with you, some cakes and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.”
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So Jeroboam’s wife did what he said and went to Ahijah’s house in Shiloh. Now Ahijah could not see; his sight was gone because of his age.
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But the\u00a0LORD\u00a0had told Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else.”
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps at the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why this pretense? I have been sent to you with bad news.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses\u00a01-6:\u00a0 Jeroboam’s son Abijah is sick, so Jeroboam tells his wife to disguise herself and consult the prophet Ahijah to find out what will happen to the boy.\u00a0 Up in years, Ahijah was physically blind, but the Spirit of God helped him to discern that the woman coming to see him was Jeroboam’s wife.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0 \u00a0Here are three lessons I believe the Holy Spirit taught me from these verses:<\/p>\n

1. Sometimes what we lack in the natural, God can give in the spiritual.\u00a0 In other words, you may be naturally blind, but God can give you spiritual sight and discernment, as he did with Ahijah.\u00a0 You may be naturally shy and not a public speaker, but God can make you His mouthpiece, as he did with Moses.\u00a0\u00a0God loves to show His power through our weakness.<\/strong><\/p>\n

2.\u00a0When you come into the presence of God, come just as you are.\u00a0 You don’t need to pretend to be someone that you are not.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>God already knows you fully any way (Psalm 139:1-4).\u00a0 God has searched you and knows you. He perceives your thoughts from afar.\u00a0 He is familiar with all your ways.\u00a0 Before a word is on your tongue, He knows it completely.\u00a0 And despite our thoughts, our ways and our words falling short of God\u2019s glory, this holy God allows us to approach Him.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 It’s because He is full of mercy and compassion, and by the blood of His Son Jesus, your sins no longer separate from Him.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0When your life is full of sin and you don’t repent, like Jeroboam and his wife, you’ll just end up pretending in front of God.\u00a0 But you don’t need to.\u00a0 Jesus Christ has already paid for all of your sins on the cross.<\/strong>\u00a0 And thus you can approach Him with confidence so that you can receive mercy and find grace to help you in your time of need (Hebrews\u00a04:16).<\/p>\n

1 Kings 14:7-20 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the\u00a0LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I raised you up from among the people and made you a leader over my people Israel.
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes.
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have provoked me to anger and thrust me behind your back.
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0” ‘Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel–slave or free. I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone.
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country. The\u00a0LORD\u00a0has spoken!’
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“As for you, go back home. When you set foot in your city, the boy will die.
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will be buried, because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the\u00a0LORD, the God of Israel, has found anything good.
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“The\u00a0LORD\u00a0will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will cut off the family of Jeroboam. This is the day! What? Yes, even now.
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0will strike Israel, so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their forefathers and scatter them beyond the River, because they provoked the\u00a0LORD\u00a0to anger by making Asherah poles.
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0And he will give Israel up because of the sins Jeroboam has committed and has caused Israel to commit.”
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then Jeroboam’s wife got up and left and went to Tirzah. As soon as she stepped over the threshold of the house, the boy died.
\n18\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They buried him, and all Israel mourned for him, as the\u00a0LORD\u00a0had said through his servant the prophet Ahijah.
\n19\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The other events of Jeroboam’s reign, his wars and how he ruled, are written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel.
\n20\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0He reigned for twenty-two years and then rested with his fathers. And Nadab his son succeeded him as king.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 7-20:\u00a0 Ahijah proceeds to give the wife of Jeroboam a message for her husband:<\/p>\n

1. First the Lord reminds Jeroboam that He was the one who raised Jeroboam up to be king (v7), taking almost all the tribes of Israel away from the house of David and giving them to Jeroboam (v8).\u00a0 Yet Jeroboam did not follow the Lord the way David did; rather by inventing a new religion and plunging himself and the nation into idolatry, Jeroboam did more evil in God’s sight “than all who lived before you” (v9).\u00a0 In so doing, God tells Jeroboam: “you thrust me behind your back” (v9).<\/p>\n

2. Because of Jeroboam’s sin, God promises to cut off every male in his house (v10-11).\u00a0 His boy Abijah will die (v12) and will be the only one in his house who dies a peaceful death, since he is the only one in Jeroboam’s house in whom God has found anything good (v13).<\/p>\n

3. God will appoint a king over Israel who will cut off the house of Jeroboam (v14). Even more, because of the sins Jeroboam committed and caused Israel to commit, God will strike Israel, uprooting them and scattering them out of the land He had given them (v15-16).<\/p>\n

Just as the Lord spoke through Ahijah, when Jeroboam’s wife returns home, Jeroboam’s son Abijah indeed dies and is buried (v17-18).\u00a0 Jeroboam himself also eventually dies and is succeeded by his son Nadab after a 22 year reign as king of Israel (v19-20).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from all this?\u00a0 Ultimately it was Jeroboam’s sins that caused the entire nation of Israel to be eventually ousted out of their land and sent into exile.\u00a0\u00a0We might be tempted to think that our sin is ultimately a personal and private issue, but it is not.\u00a0 Unless we repent and receive forgiveness for our sins, our sins will end up catching up to us and affect not only us but everyone in our care as well, causing them and us to forfeit the blessing God would otherwise want to bring in and through our lives.\u00a0 So for the sake of those in your care, be quick to repent of sin and to humble yourself before God.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Father, thank You that You have searched me and You know everything about me.\u00a0 Despite all the ways I’ve fallen short of Your glory, thank You for the mercy and grace You have poured out on my life time and time again. Because of Your mercy and grace, expressed through Jesus Christ, I can approach You just as I am with confidence and receive what I need.\u00a0 May I not be like Jeroboam, whose sins led him, his family, and his nation out of Your presence.\u00a0 Instead of pretending before You, may I be open and honest with You about my sin so that I and everyone in my care can benefit from Your mercy and grace.\u00a0 \u00a0In Jesus’ name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

copyright \u00a9 2022 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is 1 Kings 14:1-20.\u00a0 As usual,\u00a0I encourage you to open your Bible and read the passage yourself first.\u00a0 See what you can glean with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help. Then read the GAME sharing below.\u00a0 Let’s go!\u00a0<\/p>\n

1 Kings 14:1-6 (NIV)
\n1\u00a0\u00a0At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill,
\n2\u00a0\u00a0and Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go, disguise yourself, so you won’t be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there–the one who told me I would be king over this people.<\/p>\n

On verses\u00a01-6:\u00a0 Jeroboam’s son Abijah is sick, so Jeroboam tells his wife to disguise herself and consult the prophet Ahijah to find out what will happen to the boy.\u00a0 Up in years, Ahijah was physically blind, but the Spirit of God helped him to discern that the woman coming to see him was Jeroboam’s wife.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0 \u00a0Here are three lessons I believe the Holy Spirit taught me from these verses:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34859","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\/34859","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=34859"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34862,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34859\/revisions\/34862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}