Making a slight change. From now I will blog directly here. Not that that many of you read this of course, but since I am focused on just one blog for now, there is no sense in redirecting to different places. So the advantage is that now you have just one place to visit. The problem is that if you want an older writing, you will have to do back to either cupofwater or vaguely obscure. Onward....

I and II Chronicles tell the stories of the kings who either followed or didn't follow after God. Sadly, most of them did not follow after God "with their whole heart" as God instructed them. And when they did follow after them, so often their children did not when they became kings. The problems were many. First when the king did not follow after God, the whole country suffered. Now I won't get off into the responsibility of officials who lead their country. Instead I will focus on our own responsibility to our kingdoms. What is your kingdom? Ok a bit metaphoric but your home and family fall into this. No, you don't lord over them but you have responsibility to them. Even if you are the child and not the parent. Then there is the friends we have and people we work with. The responsibility of the king did not only exist when wearing the crown. The burden was there whether on the hunt, at war, or even at play. So it is with us. We have resposibility to follow after God with our whole hearts. I have only begun to search this out but for the kings in the old testament, this meant getting rid of the things that conflicted with worship to God. It meant getting rid of shrines, alters, anything that people worshipped instead of the LORD. So part of following with our whole heart must include rooting out anything that conflicts with worship of HIM. In fact, that sin was the sin that cost the people more than anything. Worship. Following after other gods cost them their lands, lives, families, and all other things. However, God was faithful in that HE told them that if they would ever turn from their ways and come back to HIM and worship HIM, He would forgive them their transgressions. He would restore them. That was what HE longed for. To have them worship HIM. That means that worship is an act of will. What we choose to worship is the most important decision we could ever make. And God allows us to make that choice. Certainly to not worship HIM carries consequences. Yet the choice is still there.