Your worship of God matters!
Your worship unleashes the power of God in your life and in the lives of others.
August 1
For if you return to the LORD, your relatives and your children will be treated mercifully by their captors, and they will be able to return to this land. For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful. If you return to him, he will not continue to turn his face from you.
2 Chronicles 30:9
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Your worship of God matters!
The very first thing that King Hezekiah does after becoming king is to open the temple and reinstate proper worship of God. Hezekiah has the priests cleanse and purify the temple of all the idols and other unclean things that had been placed there by previous kings. He then invites all the people to come and celebrate the Passover which had not been celebrated on a large scale for a long time.
Hezekiah’s invitation is not just to celebrate the Passover but to return to the LORD. And then within that invitation to return to the LORD, Hezekiah gives the people a promise that is very powerful. Not only would the people benefit from coming back to the LORD but so would their relatives that were away in captivity.
God had turned His face away from the people of Israel because they had turned from Him and were worshipping worthless idols. Ultimately, God allowed the Assyrians to come in and capture many of the Israelites and take them away into captivity. God’s promise to those remaining in the land was that if they would turn back God that He would turn His face back to them and not just them but also upon their families that were in captivity. Hezekiah reminds us that God does this because He is gracious and merciful.
What hope that this should give us! This means for us, if we will worship the LORD Jesus, because of God’s graciousness and mercy, not only will we be blessed but God will also bless us by blessing our family and friends that are in captivity. The Assyrians are long gone but the powerful enemy that they represent to us is not; the enemy of sin. Many of our family and friends are in bondage and captivity to sin.
Your faithfulness will play a role in bringing them to a place where they can encounter God in a powerful way. Because of your worship and service to God, He may protect and provide for them while they are in rebellion. He may do this to bless you. Never underestimate the power of your worship of God. Your worship unleashes the power of God in your life and in the lives of others. You may never know the impact of your worship of God. You may never realize the effect that your worship has on those around you and even on those that you don’t even know.
As we bow our hearts in worship to God, He draws nearer to us and as a result He is nearer to those around us. I desire that I will grow to be as near to Jesus as is humanly possible so that those around me can’t help but see God more clearly. Jesus, help us to clear our hearts of anything that separates us from that intimate closeness with You.
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