King Josiah

Just reading through 2 Kings in the bible and learning about years and years of the history of Israel and Judah's kings. There were a few who were good, who restored the people back to worship God. Unfortunately there were many who did not follow God's laws, and actually provoked God to anger at their disloyalty to Him! Actually, Israel and Judah constantly found themselves in difficult situations with other countries and kingdoms because they chose other gods over the One who delivered them out of slavery and promised them a full life of blessing and abundance if they would serve Him with their whole heart. But out of their bad choices they regularly found themselves in trouble.

I imagine to some this concept of God commanding His people to serve only Him sounds a bit harsh and demanding...but to me, it reminds me of a relationship between a Man and a Woman, where a couple makes an agreement to commit to the other ... and then one of the partners decides to go off and share their hearts with many other partners. The commitment of the relationship is broken. Ultimately the partner feels used, cheated and unimportant. God loves us so much that He basically wants our love to Himself, which is why He asks us to give our whole lives to Him.

The intersting this is that as an observer looking into the past, I find myself thinking "man they were dumb for not obeying God." But then I am reminded of the times when I do not obey what God wants me to do and the times when I do not make Him Lord over my life like I should...seeing the negative effects of their choices reminds me to make good ones myself.

I was so excited when I read about King Josiah, one of the final rulers of Judah before King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took the people of Judah into his own country... Josiah became king at the age of 8! But at the age of 16, one of the priests read the written book of God's laws to him which he found in the temple, and Josiah after hearing the words, realized that he and his people were disobeying God by serving false idols and gods...so he did something about it! He first repented, and then gathered all of the people together...read the laws to them, he set up a new covenant with God to serve Him and all the people were in agreement...he destroyed everything to do with idol worship and then returned to the Passover celebration and walked in God's ways his whole life!

He's a great example to all of us!

2 Kings 23:25
"Now before him (Josiah) there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to alll the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him."