Mon.’s Devo - God’s Glory

Read: 1 Kings 5:1-6:38; Acts 7:1-29; Psalm 127:1-5; Proverbs 16:28-30 King Hiram from Tyre made the best lumber in all the world. He got his wood from the cedars of Lebanon. Hiram had been a friend of David’s so Solomon asked if he would supply the lumber needed for the Temple and the workers to do the work. Solomon would pay them whatever King Hiram deemed reasonable. King Hiram was elated and asked for wheat and oil in return. It was a win win for both of them. *** It took a work force of 153,600 laborers to build the Temple. The Temple was 90 feet long and 30 feet wide. The Holy of Holies was one third of the building which was overlaid with gold. That was where the Ark of the Convent sat. The interior of the rest of the Temple had carvings of cherubim, palm trees and open flowers all overlaid with gold. Two cherubim with touching wingspans were placed in the inner sanctuary. They reached 15 feet across and were covered with gold. Everything in the Temple was to represent the glory of God in the garden of Eden. Even the floor was covered in gold. *** In Acts, Stephen was being questioned by the council and his face was reflecting the glory of God. When they asked him if he had blasphemed Moses and God, he led them into a history lesson starting with Abraham. God had given Abraham the outline for his whole posterity. Stephen went through the story of Isaac, Jacob and his twelve sons. He told how God used Joseph to led his family to Egypt to preserve them through a horrible famine. When Joseph died, he had instructed them to bury his bones in the burial place Abraham had buried his people. Then, like God had told Abraham, the people of God were oppressed in Egypt for two hundred years. When they cried out to him, God raised up Moses who was born a Jew but raised in the household of Pharaoh. When he grew up, he saw an Egyptian mistreating a Jewish laborer and secretly killed the Egyptian. When he realized his secret was a public matter, he fled to the wilderness where he married a foreigner and had two sons. *** The stories in the Bible tell God’s plan using very common and broken people. God used their failures to bring about his purposes. We see how God can turn the worse scenario into something good and he does the same with our lives. God will bring glory to his name. *** Lord, we pray that we would make it easy for you to be glorified through our lives. May we walk in the plan you have laid out for us to walk in. All glory to your name!