Home > Reading > NALC Devotions – October 1, 2017

Today’s readings: 1 Kings 12:21-33; Acts 4:18-31; John 10:31-42

Jeroboam was in trouble. His kingdom was struggling and people were travelling away from Shechem to Jerusalem to worship God. In this time of struggle, Jeroboam decided to trust the advice of humans and relied on politicians rather than trusting God. In so doing, he made two golden calves which he placed in Bethel and Shechem. People flocked to them to worship them.

Now Jeroboam was not the first nor last king to not do what God wanted him to do. Unlike David, who sinned against God but repented, Jeroboam was unrepentant and did not trust God when he was in trouble.

Trusting God does not just mean to follow God when it is sensible or good for you. It is to follow God when things are a struggle and there is no logical reason to trust God at all. It is to trust God when everything looks wrong, things are not going according to your plan, and the world and all its empty promises is ineffective and even unreasonable. Basically everything is falling apart. That is when we are to trust God instead of the idols of this world.

Prayer: Dear God, help me trust you in the most difficult moments of my life, when it would be so easy to trust everything else but you. Amen.

Today’s devotion was written by Dieter Punt, Pastor at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Troutman, NC.

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  • It has always been easy to follow God when things are going well, that is until we think we are so wise it was our own decisions that brought us here. You can rest assured that once you are in God’s will, Satan will attack. Satan hates a happy Christian, instead he wants us to be dissatisfied with our faith. Jeraboam, was selected by God, yet, not following David’s leadership, he builds altars. But, what are our altars?