Today’s Devotion
Topic: Protect Your Valuables!
Text: 1 Kings 14: 25- 28
25 In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. 26 He carried off the treasures of the temple of the LORD and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made.
27 So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace. 28 Whenever the king went to the LORD’S temple, the guards bore the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom. Amen
God blessed King Solomon, not only with wisdom, but also in wealth. Actually he is listed in the Bible as one of the world’s richest men that ever lived. After his death, his son Rehoboam succeeded him as king of Israel and automatically became the custodian of all his father’s inheritance.
Rehoboam however didn’t pay much attention to preserving this inheritance, so he lost most of its valuables to the king of Egypt during an attack. He even lost the treasures of the temple of the Lord, those of the royal palace and the golden shields his father Solomon had made.
The king of Israel later had to make new shields, only this time with bronze. Even yet, he was not willing to repeat the mistakes of the past that led to the capture of the previous valuables. He assigned them to commanders in duty and instructed that they be returned to the guardroom soon after use.
The question however is, “why must we wait to lose our ‘gold’ before we become careful and protective of their ‘bronze ‘ replacements. Many of us are blessed with great academic opportunities, good lives, wonderful marriages, great jobs, godfearing children, promising futures, divine opportunities and godly relationships. Yet we are very unconcerned, ungrateful, irresponsible, uncaring and spiritually sluggish about their protection and wellbeing until the enemy sneaks in to steal, kill and destroy.
It is after this that we begin to pray for replacements and second chances. Although our Father in heaven is a perfected Restorer of lives and destinies, not all affected people allow themselves to be perfectly healed from the lost of the past — making the replacement process come at a cost.
For instance, the cost of recovering all the time we wasted being careless/ negligent of the earlier blessings that we took for granted. Also, the cost of bearing the scares and memories from the battles with the enemy and events of the past that led to our losing everything. These prices we pay are sometimes so high that it comes to the point where we’d rather settle for less (bronze).
It shouldn’t however come to that, Precious One. The value of a bronze shield; its properties, efficiency, durability and benefits can never be compared to that of gold. We need to protect the valuables God has entrusted to us just so we can move from grace to grace and not from grace to grass.
Begin to pray right now. Ask for the wisdom and strength to protect your cherished valuables in order not to lose them to the enemy. This includes loving the lord thy God with all your might, loving your neighbour as yourself, seeking first the kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness and working out your salvation with fear and trembling. There are no other gains so valuable as those. They are more precious than gold. Protect all these valuables with your life, it will save you tomorrow’s bronze.
