Today, I read in II Chronicles, chapter 24. This chapter talks about King Joash and Jehoida the priest. If you will notice verses 2 it says, "And Joash did that which was right in the sight of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest." Notice the last part of the verse. It says that Joash did right "all the days of Jehoida the priest". If you skip down to verses 15-18, you will see that as soon as Jehoida is dead, Joash immediately turns his back on God. He even kills the son of Jehoida the priest (who had helped him become king!).
The problem was that Joash had never learned to "parent" himself. He had to have someone watching over him in order for him to make right choices, but when that person was taken away he immediately turned to sin. Many, many young people today have to have their parents continually tell them to do right. And, sad to say, when they get older and leave home they just go wild because they never learned to do right even when they were alone. There are many adults today who, to stay in church, have to have their preacher or Sunday School teacher constantly prodding them to stay faithful....they can't do it themselves.
Joash never learned this important truth of "parenting yourself" and he came to a miserable end. (II Chronicles 24:23-26) I hope this encourages and exhorts you to learn this truth as it did me.
3 comments:
Excellent post Caleb. As a person grows in their relationship with God it become easier of more of a need and want to stay faithful to God. When we are just babies in Christ, we all need someone leading us around and 'parenting' us, those who never grow in Christ and build their personal relationship with God are the one who also never learn to 'parent' themselves.
Very good post Caleb. It is very sad the number of young people who were raised with parents teaching them to be faithful and knowing how God expects them to live but then get married and move out or just plain move out on their own and they go against everything that they were taught. This happens so many times and it saddens my heart. We have a couple in our church that did just that and now those parents are broken hearted.
Caleb,
That is real good.
Dave
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