Fri.’s Devo - God’s Ways Are Not Our Ways

Read: 2 Chron. 14:1-16:14, Ro. 9:1-21, Ps. 19:1-14, Pr. 20:1 Asa was a good example of what God did when Judah obeyed him and what He did when they forgot him. Asa followed the Lord and God gave him victory over the Ethiopians, a people with many more warriors and much mightier than they. During Asa’s rule, the people of Judah experienced so much peace and prosperity that many Israelites were moving to Judah. To stop them the king of Israel, Baasha, started building Ramah. Instead of crying out to the Lord for help, Asa hired the Syrian army to help Judah fight Israel. Judah won and took some of Israel’s cities and stopped the building of Ramah. God was not pleased because Asa didn’t ask Him for help so He sent the prophet Hanani to tell him that his punishment for hiring the Syrians instead of asking Him for help would be continual wars. Asa was so mad at Hanani’s prophesy he put him in jail and began to oppress his own people. Asa died of diseased feet. How appropriate. Asa’s ‘walk’ had become diseased. Asa needed to remember Ps. 19. If you don’t believe in predestination, you might want to read today’s chapter in Romans. God creates some people to be honored in earth and in heaven and some to be cursed. Pharaoh didn’t have a choice. He was created to be hardened so that God could show his power through him in all the plagues. I often wonder if the Pharaoh repented later. Paul goes on to say that God has the right to decide who he chooses to make His children and which he chooses not to. This messes with our carnal understanding of justice, but not with God’s. His thoughts and ways are so much higher than ours and he is always just and true. Lord, Your Word and Your decisions are always perfect, right, pure, clean, true and righteous altogether.