Articles
Love The Lord With All Your Heart
When Solomon first became king, it was written of him, “And Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places." (1 Kings 3:3). If you continue reading through verse 14, then you see that the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream. God asks him what he wants. Solomon’s answer was “give your servant an understanding heart to judge.” This pleased the LORD, and He gave Solomon wisdom.
When we come to 1 Kings 11:1-9, we read about a different King Solomon. We read of a man that let his love for his wives turn his heart away from the LORD. We learn that Solomon did things that were contrary to God’s word. He intermarried from the nations God had said not to intermarry with (vs. 2). He built high places for other gods such as Chemosh and Molech (vs.7).
Solomon loved the LORD, except that he allowed his own personal desires to interfere with his loyalty to God. This happened to Solomon over the course of time. He did not fall away from God overnight. There is a valuable lesson to be learned here that is applicable to us as Christians today. If we want to be pleasing to God, we must respect His word. If we want to be pleasing to God, we must be willing to conform to His will, through obedience to His word.
In order to be obedient to God’s word, we must first read and study God’s word to know what it teaches us. If we allow our own personal desires to twist the Scriptures to fit our lives rather than transforming our lives to fit the Scriptures, we risk becoming like Solomon.
The reward that awaits us far exceeds the pleasures that Solomon sought. They far exceed any of the personal desires that would have us end up like Solomon, a man far removed from the grace of God. We need to take heed from Solomon.
