Getting the Foundation Right

"One Year Bible" Old Testament History Passage
II Kings 15:1-16:20

"...he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin."  II Kings 15:9,18,24,28 (NKJV)

The Northern Kingdom (which we call Israel as compared to Judah in the south) was in trouble from Day One.  When Jeroboam rebelled against Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, he immediately set up an alternative worship system.  This new system was no longer based in Jerusalem but instead in Bethel and Dan (I Kings 12:29).

Foundations are extremely important.  If a house is built on the wrong thing, it will never be right until the correction is made.  This applies to every area of life.  This is why REPENTANCE is so important.

Repentance means that we return to right foundation.  We get back to the way God wants things to be.  Unfortunately, many people try to build their lives on a mixture.  Sure enough, they love Jesus.  But they mix in a few compromises.  They never deal with some very important foundational matters.  They are totally devoted in MOST of their life, but there are these one or two areas that never get touched, never get ministered to.

As a result, even though a certain degree of God's blessing rests on them, they always come up short in some way.  They are like many of the good kings of Israel.  They do really great things, but a little phrase always follows: "he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam."  Another way of saying this would be: he/she did really fantastic things, but he never quite dealt with that lying thing... or he never really dealt with the anger thing...or he never let God handle the secret compromises.

Repentance does not mean that YOU deal with these things.  It means you LET GOD deal with these things.  You may not have the power -- but God does!  Repentance is allowing God to clean the house up.  Let's do that today.  May we rise to new levels of blessing as we allow God to correct all the bad foundations.