2 Chronicles 27-29

"In his time of trouble King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the LORD. He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him; for he thought, "Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me, " But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel.

Ahaz gathered together the furnishings from the temple of God and took them away. He shut the doors of the LORD's temple and set up altars at every street corner in Jerusalem. In every town in Judah he built high places to burn sacrifices to other gods and provoked the LORD, the God of his fathers, to anger."

As I read this passage this morning, I was reminded of the message we heard at the bible study last night about the importance of having a heavenly perspective in our lives.

I think we can all agree that we live in a crazy world. And the Lord our God is the only one that can give us true peace.

If we are honest, I think we've all, at one point or other, responded to our difficulties the way Ahaz did. We'll look to pretty much all other things rather then turning to God. We may, like Ahaz, look at other people's "success" and try to learn from them. I mean, what Ahaz did took a lot of effort setting up all those altars. Definitely more effort than just simply humbling himself and turning to God. But isn't that how we act so often?...

Let's be reminded this day that we serve a living God. Christianity is not religion or philosophy. The only reason many of us have experienced real change in our lives, when we know that it's impossible to really change people, is because God is alive and active. He is our true comforter and our true joy giver. And the thing is God wants to bless us with all these great things! If we'd only humble ourselves and turn to him.

God wants us to be free. Free from our pride, lust, depression, fear, bitterness, etc. And he has made this possible through Jesus. Let's praise God this day, look upon him, and live in freedom:)