Day 2437 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.


2 Chronicles 29:6 NIV

I was reading through 2 Chronicles last night and this verse really stuck out to me. Hezekiah is beginning his reforms, restoring the temple, and making a new covenant with God because the prior king had led the people away from their God and done evil in His sight. It really clicked with me for some reason. It's like we need this sort of thing all over again today. We need this reminder that we don't have to repeat what's already been done.

You know, I think we settle for what we're handed. I guess we find it easier to just keep doing as those before us have done rather than undertaking the hard work of finding our own way. Maybe we assume that those who came before us knew what they were doing and got everything right. Maybe we don't want to take the time to have to consider things and look for ways to improve. Whatever the case, simply continuing what has been done before us may be easier, but it may also be completely wrong.

That's what I think we need to understand. We are responsible for the choices that we make today. We're the ones who will have to answer for the lives that we chose to live. No blaming it on those who came before us if we do it wrong. No playing innocent like we didn't know better. No, we have to make our own choices and stop trying to shirk the responsibility that those choices and decisions carry. I think that this is another one of those things that we're seeing all around us today and it needs to stop.

As we talked about yesterday, this world is headed for a whole lot of rough days. The amount of sin and wickedness around us is growing every day. And it's on each of us individually to ensure that we're right with God. It's on us to make sure that we're putting sin to death in our lives so that it doesn't lead us to wrong side of God's wrath. It's on us to stand up, fight the good fight, and own the choices that we make. If we don't, if we allow others to dictate our lives for us, then we're following them rather than following Christ.

There's this encouragement and hope in this verse that I think our world needs right now. We don't have to keep repeating the same mistakes. We don't have to fall for the same lies we fell for yesterday. We don't have to keep living in sin and try to find some way to not feel so bad about it. We don't have to be who this world has become. We don't have to be who we’ve been or who those before us were. We have the opportunity to stop, evaluate what's happened before us and what we're doing right now, and make the changes that will help us do better moving forward.

As I've said in a lot of these posts lately, God's not going to compromise on His holiness. He won't change His mind about sin. And He won't let us by with doing wrong because the world tells us it's right. He calls us to be holy and you better believe that He's not playing around. Our world likes to laugh off much of what's right, true, and serious. They don't understand our faith because they're comfortable in their sins. But we can't afford to be. God calls us to be better than that.

As things continue to get more and more out of hand it's time that we all take a really good look at where we stand in our faith. We don't have time to keep taking this lightly or to continue convincing ourselves that our sins aren't that bad. Any sin is something that leads us away from God so we need to deal with it. We need to get ourselves lined out and make sure that we're following His path because it's the only one that leads to the right side of eternity.

Make the changes you need to make. Get rid of the things that are you coming between you and God. Own the mistakes you've made and ask for His forgiveness. We can't wait any longer to turn around and get right with our Lord. This is not a test.

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