Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 13-14.

The thing we usually note about Jehu’s son, Jehoahaz, and his grandson, Jehoash, is that they each did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam.  We pay little attention to where it tells us that at some point Jehoahaz sought the Lord’s favor, and God listened to him and delivered Israel from the power of Aram.  And, while we sometimes hear someone teach about Jehoash weeping over Elisha when Elisha was on his death bed I have never heard them mention that just a few verses earlier the passage said that Jehoash did evil in the eyes of the Lord.  So, even though Jehoahaz did evil in God’s eyes, when he sought God, God listened to him.  And even though his son Jehoash also did evil in God’s eyes, he wept over Elisha and God gave him a prophecy of victory.  God will listen to those who have done evil if they turn to Him.  God will use those who do evil to further His purposes.  The lesson here is that as bad as each of them were, God saw potential in them and offered them an opportunity to serve Him.  Perhaps if Amaziah, king of Judah, had invited Jehoash to join him to worship God instead of making war against him, Jehoash would have abandoned the worship of Jeroboam’s golden calves.  Whether or not that is the case, we should invite others, even those who do evil, to join us in worshiping God, rather than making war on them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.