God is Faithful, but What About Us? - I Kings 8-9 and Luke 21:1-19

Solomon finished building the Temple and bringing the Ark into the Most Holy Place. God was pleased, and He filled the Temple with the glory of His presence. Then, Solomon made a long prayer to dedicate the Temple. He gave God the credit for completing what He had told David He would do. That part of the prayer was good. He made reference at the end of the prayer to what the people needed to do to keep the covenant. That was good. The rest of the prayer was unusual because it called on God to be faithful to hear their prayers. God is always faithful. We do not have to worry about that. Maybe, Solomon was praying that way to remind the people what to do, but there was no reason to ask God to be faithful. Perhaps, he should have been praying for the people to be faithful to God. I think that is why God appeared to Solomon again the second time. He assured Solomon that He would be faithful, and He reminded Solomon that the covenant depended on him and the people being faithful. A lot of people want to blame God for the problems in their lives and in the world. Those things are not God's fault. He is always faithful to do His part exactly right. Our lack of faithfulness causes the problems.

Look at Luke 21. Jesus pointed out the widow. Why? She was faithful. She gave her all to the Lord. Then, He warned them of the time to come when things would get bad. He told them of a lot of things God was going to do in the future. Those things will certainly happen. Some of them have happened like the destruction of the Temple. However, the important thing was for us to hear what Jesus was saying about us being faithful. When things get bad, we can count on God. Can He count on us to trust Him and to do His will? That is the question. I pray that we will not doubt the faithfulness of God, but I pray that we will put the stress on our own faithfulness.

Tomorrow, I intend to read I Kings 10-11 and Luke 21:20-38.