Isaiah 26:3: “YOU keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on YOU, because he trusts in YOU”.
Daily Pursuing HIS High Ground!
What difference to chase
“higher ground” than
“some place”! But! Only to those
who stay focused on CHRIST.
Else both elevations
are idols in type;
each with consequence
none can avoid.
Thus what seek thee now?
Will it lift or suppress you?
The ground towards GOD…
or to some other place?
Know then which direction
your steps have been
running! With Discernment,
cast ye off all others!
Just into HIS most awesome
presence, keep climbing…
through humbled surrender
and most fervent prayer!
Then! The fear of the LORD
shall keep you from falling
through faith as one faultless
…because of HIS blood!
As HIServant again choosing this day to pursue HIS higher grounds instead low places,
Whitney
Devotional: 1 Kings 14:26-27 “He (The enemy Egyptian king Shisak) seized the treasures of the house of the LORD and of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields that Solomon had made.
27 “Then King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place and committed them to the care of the captains of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace.”
Like the Garth Brooks song reminds me, “Friends in low places”…so our focus defaults to when we trade the presence of our glorious GOD for the bronze shields of the world.
We read in both 1 Kings 14:27-28 and in 2 Chronicles 12:10-11, that Solomon’s son who reigned after him, King Rehoboam, replaced the golden shields Solomon had made for the temple and palace.
He instead put in bronze shields after Shishak the Egyptian king came and took them. He did this to make it look like he had faith in YAHWEH.
He wanted people to pretend with him that nothing bad had happened.
Note also verse 28 following. “Whenever the king went to the LORD’s temple, the guards bore the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom.”
He was putting on this show whenever HE went to church and then had them put away once he left.
Let that sink in.
No relationship, just attendance for show without reverent fear of GOD.
That’s my paraphrasing analogy if you will and this action was quite symbolic of Judah’s spiritual decline which King Rehoboam should have been leading in the OTHER direction.
And that’s the message to each of us as well.
We must not shift nor stray from GOD’s divine glory (gold) to human-made substitutes (bronze), right?
We must not run to the high places of false hope and temporal gain!
For such “high places” represent diminished spiritual faith and rely instead on earthly power, or worse yet…our own strength.
Run then from every false high place and do not entertain HIS “higher ground” without demonstrating a humbled heart.
So choose you this day to embrace the warmth of faith found in CHRIST on the climb upwards!
Jude 1:24-25 “Now unto HIM that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of HIS glory with exceeding joy,
To the only wise GOD our SAVIOUR, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.”
Amen…and amen!
2CJC 