The Feed Mill

Today’s Bible Reading: 1 Kings 3-5

Today’s Devotional: 1 Kings 3:1-3

We see in 1 Kings the beginning of Solomon’s reign as well as the beginning of his compromising. Solomon bringing into the nation what the Lord did not desire to be brought in. Solomon’s alliance with Egypt, Egypt in scripture is always a picture, type, and example of the world and the ways of what Chris has redeemed us from.

Solomon started off and his first step in kingly matters after addressing individuals from his father David’s reign was to work in his strength to secure and seek strength for Israel from what Israel had called to leave behind, from Egypt. Not only did Solomon start off ensuring the security of the Land which God had promised and swore to protect with the world to protect and ensure security. Solomon sealed by the same program or method which the nations around Israel did, by taking and multiplying foreign wives which was in direct conflict with God’s Word. God desired that Israel was protected by Him, strengthened by Him, fulfill their calling in the Land by Him; complete and done in ways and by means which pass our understanding, but Solomon sought his understanding on that first foreign diplomatic scene.

Anything the Lord does or desires to complete in our life, His desire is that it comes from completely trusting in Him. A great thing about afterwards if we fast forward to later in our reading today we see that even though this was Solomon’s first foreign policy decision, for us deciding to continue walking in the things which we accept Christ because we wanted to change from. What we see is the amazing Grace of the Lord and His desire for Solomon to grow in understanding who He is and to know the Heart of the Lord. The Lord’s response Solomon’s choices was not to replace Solomon but to grow Solomon in wisdom and understanding which only comes from Him. For us we do this by spending time in His Word and growing in a relationship with Him through His Word. Paul in Colossians 2 addresses this, that our identity is found in learning who Jesus is and is not found in any thing other than Jesus.