APR 11

2 Chronicles 12:1-16
Memorise 2 Chronicles 12:14
“…he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD”

This seems to be a common trend. Often during camp time, many teens confessed they have backslidden and professed that they desire to turn back to God. However after the camp, a good number of them turned back to a life of sin, and so quickly forget the confessions that they had made. Why is this so? What can we do to ensure that our desire for God is sincere, and not just a fleeting emotion that wanes so swiftly?

Solomon’s son Rehoboam became the king of Judah upon his father’s death. A few short years after he began his reign, Rehoboam “forsook the law of the LORD” (2 Chronicles 12:1). Faced with impending conquest by the Egyptian Pharoah Shishak, the king humbled himself before God. However, this proved to be only an outward show, for his life showed little change after that. In fact instead of fully repenting and asking the Lord to guide his kingdom, in a vain bid to cover up his failures, he installed shields of brass to replace the gold that had been plundered. 2 Chronicles 12:14 records “And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD”. Rehoboam remained in sin, because his heart was not prepared. Although he seemed to confess his sins before God in humility, it was only an outward temporal confession that was not from the heart. He was not prepared to confess Jehovah as absolute King and Lord over him. Instead, his desires were only for his own pride and glory. He never truly cared to seek after God at all, and thus his life was one that brought nothing but shame and grief to the Lord.

This verse highlights to us that if we do not prepare our hearts to seek God, we will inevitably fall into evil. Remember our hearts are desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and we have no way of trying to change ourselves. There are many potential idols in our lives that seek to draw us away from God, and if we are half-hearted about seeking God or if we only fervently seek Him at the spur of the moment without much thought, we will soon fall back into idolatry. Without a whole-hearted confession that Christ alone is our Lord, we will not be able to renew our minds of our own accord. Soon the wisdom of this world will return to us, and we will become disillusioned. Seeking God is therefore a serious decision rather than a frivolous one.

Thought: Is my heart really prepared to seek after God?
Prayer: O Lord, Thou art God alone, I have no other gods!