Scripture:
1 Samuel 7:3-4 ESV
[3] And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” [4] So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the Lord only.
Observation:
I wanted to post this whole chapter, but it is a lot of reading for some. There is so much good stuff in it. However, let’s get to the observation. The Israelites had come off of a big defeat the Philistines had won a battle and taken the ark of the Covenant. Only to find out the LORD’s hand was not with them. HE afflicted them with tumors everywhere they placed the ark. They finally had enough and tired the ark to some milk cows and sent it back. The Israelites found it in a field and decided to return to GOD. So they reach out to Samuel. His instructions are simple. First, he asks a question. If indeed you are returning to GOD with ALL YOUR HEART…you have to eliminate all other Allegiance. In other words, the foreign gods you have set up for your selves…they have to go. Cut down the Ashtaroth pole Tear down the altar of Baal and turn your hearts completely to the LORD. Serve HIM and HIM only.
Application:
GOD wants all your heart. So it’s time to get rid of all that other stuff that continues to steal your attention. So let me explain what an Ashtaroth pole is. It’s whatever we put before GOD an alter of Baal is the one thing we won’t let go of that keeps drawing us back into our old ways. I never got to experience true freedom from the bondage of sin until I was willing to let it all go. This happened a few years ago after a Christmas spent alone…again I had asked Jesus to be the LORD of my life many years before but still had things in the way from HIM actually calling the shots. In other words true surrender. There was an Ashtaroth pole. In my mind, I was saying ok GOD it’s all yours but in my heart I was saying…well ok all but this… We have to be willing to abandon everything we think we know and turn to GOD with all our hearts Philippians 3:8 is a great example of this. The apostle Paul a very educated man put away everything he had learned from a highly respected teacher of the Jewish law to chase after the knowledge of Christ Jesus. In his own words…” I count it all loss”. My question this morning is this. What is holding you back? What is it that you find keeps drawing you back to your old ways? Do you have an altar built to Baal? If you do then now is the time to fix that. I want to go back to the story of Gideon for a minute. One of the first things he did was get his dad’s bull and tear down the altar of Baal and cut down the Ashtaroth pole and build an altar to the LORD. we have to do the same thing whatever is taking our attention from the father needs to be destroyed. Is it an addiction? Is it a relationship with someone that’s not healthy or outside of GOD prescribed order? Do we focus too much time on work? Whatever that alter is let’s set it on fire and turn our hearts completely to GOD.
Prayer:
Father, we don’t want to be on the fence. Or be walking some kind of line. We want to be all the way on your side. So far away from the line that we can rest in your shadow. Please allow us to focus all our attention on the one thing that brings us life. YOU. In the Creation process, you made a lot of things trees animals land the sea, and so on. But the only thing you breathed the breath of life into was man. We know that we are on your mind, and we want you on ours. Help us to stay focused on you as we go through this day. In the mighty name of Jesus, I pray amen.