Prayer: Father, You told Solomon what would happen if he associated and married women who worshipped other gods. I am grieved, as I’m sure You were too, that Solomon did not listen to You. May I learn from Solomon’s lack. In the name of Yeshua, amen.
Reading: 1 Kings 11 key: vs. 1-4 “Now King Solomon loved so many foreign women, besides the daughter of Pharaoh—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites—from the nations of whom Adonai had said to the children of Israel: “You shall not associate with them nor they associate with you, for surely they would turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon clung to them for love. So he had 700 wives as princesses and 300 concubines—and his women led his heart astray. For it came about, as Solomon grew old, that his wives led his heart away after other gods, so that his heart was no longer wholly devoted to Adonai his God, unlike the heart of his father David.” TLV
Attention: In the 1950’s and 1960’s a man name Hugh Hefner founded Playboy Magazine. The magazine and his shows created the illusion that Hugh was living the high life, a hedonistic lifestyle. Interestingly, according to Expedia, Mr. Hefner was a descendant of Plymouth governor William Bradford.[12][13] He described his family as “conservative, Midwestern, [and] Methodist”.[14] His mother had wanted him to become a missionary.” Obviously, he did not embrace his mother’s faith in God.
Solomon was the ultimate hedonist of his time, perhaps all-time. In the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon declares, “I denied myself nothing that my eyes desired; I withheld from my heart no enjoyment. My heart took delight from all my toil— this was my reward for all my labor” (2:10).
In the face of what Adonai warned him of, Solomon proceeded to marry foreign wives and make alliances with those marriages. God had already declared to Moses that a king was not to multiply horses, wives, and gold and silver, “Only he should not multiply horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to multiply horses, because Adonai has said to you, “You must never go back that way again.” Nor should he multiply wives for himself, so that his heart does not turn aside, nor multiply much silver and gold for himself” (Deuteronomy 17:16-17). Solomon broke each of these Torah laws and commandments.
It boggles my mind, how someone who asked and was given wisdom and discernment, so mishandled it.
Do you remember your parents telling you, “I told you so.” God told him and warned him, and yet he fell. The answer to his fall is found in verse 2b, “Solomon clung to them (his wives and concubines) for love.” Anytime we transfer our need for love away from God and towards another individual or thing, we have made them idols.
Is God in first place for your affection? The new commandment given by Yeshua, “‘You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37b).’” God commands our love from those of us who follow Him. Are we keeping this commandment or are we chasing after love in all the wrong places and from all the wrong people? If we love God with all our heart, our love keeps us from sinning against Him, it keeps us from falling like Solomon.
Action: I choose today to place all my love toward God and then toward others appropriately.
Yield: I choose today to be obedient in my lifestyle unto God.
Engage: I choose today to engage with the Holy Spirit in directing my love to God.
Relationship: I choose today to live in intimate relationship with God.
Prayer: Father, we all tend to misplace our love and misdirect our affection to things and people rather than towards You. Help us to love You first and only, that there are no other gods in our lives. Amen.
Memory Verse: Colossians 1: 15-18 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created— in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen, whether thrones or angelic powers or rulers or authorities. All was created through Him and for Him. He exists before everything, and in Him all holds together. He is the head of the body, His community. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead— so that He might come to have first place in all things.” TLV
Music Video: Lauren Daigle—First https://youtu.be/RbWQV3OiRqA?si=w9ZFARrYekZzMpCJ
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”