Day 12 - 2 Kings

We all want forgiveness.  And, it's readily available to us.  Our God is a God of second chances and third chances and 76th chances.  God is always ready to welcome us back, no matter how far you or I have strayed.  However, one of the underrated aspects of living into that forgiveness is really turning our life over to God.  If you just want cheap grace, cool.  That's all you get.  But if you want a full portion of grace, it will mean accepting that forgiveness and righting the ways we've been wrong.  King Josiah understood this as he lead Judah.  He was ready to not only receive a second chance for God's people, he took the necessary steps to get their lives back in order:

Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 2 He went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord. 3 The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.


4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. 5 He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts. 6 He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. 7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah. (2 Kings 23:1-7)

Do you see what happened.  It was wasn't just about reading the law and asking for forgiveness.  He cleaned out the temple.  He tore down the shrines to other gods.  He got rid of all the things that had led the people astray.  He fixed what he could fix on his end on the outside.  God fixes the inside.  We fix the outside.  Forgiveness will never have it's full affect on us if we don't do our part.  Do you need to apologize to someone?  Do you need to have a conversation with someone you haven't talked to in a while?  Do you need to end a relationship to move on with forgiveness?  Do you need to get something out of your house?  Do you need to get a firewall on your computer?  Do you need to stop a habit?  Do you need to stop going to a particular place?  Sometimes, it takes getting rid of the stuff that's causing us to sin.  Receive the forgiveness.  Let God fix the inside.  Let us fix the outside.