Monday, September 21, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 2 Chronicles 14-18
Key Verse
2 Chronicles 17:3 — “And the LORD was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim;”
Devotional Thought
What does it take to finish well? That question hangs over these five chapters, because here we meet two kings who started brilliantly and one who never quite trusted the God who had blessed him so richly. Asa begins as a reformer: he tears down the altars of the strange gods, breaks the images, cuts down the groves, and commands Judah to seek the LORD God of their fathers. When Zerah the Ethiopian comes against him with a thousand thousand men, Asa cries out, “LORD, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power… for we rest on thee.” God smites the Ethiopians, and Judah carries away exceeding much spoil. Azariah the prophet confirms the covenant: “The LORD is with you, while ye be with him.” The people swear with a loud voice, with shouting, with trumpets, and the land has rest.
Then the years pass, and something shifts. In his thirty-sixth year, facing Baasha of Israel, Asa reaches not for the LORD but for the treasury of the house of the LORD, sending silver and gold to Benhadad of Syria to buy a league. It works — and it costs him. Hanani the seer tells him plainly: “Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the LORD thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand.” The eyes of the LORD still run to and fro throughout the whole earth, but Asa has stopped watching for them. He throws the prophet in prison, oppresses the people, and in his diseased feet seeks physicians rather than the LORD. He dies in his forty-first year with sweet odours and a great burning, but the quiet of his early reign is gone.
Jehoshaphat, his son, starts well too — removing high places, sending princes and Levites with the book of the law throughout the cities of Judah, so that the fear of the LORD falls on the surrounding kingdoms and none makes war against him. Yet by chapter 18 he has joined affinity with Ahab, saying, “I am as thou art, and my people as thy people,” and sits beside a king who hates the one true prophet. Micaiah alone speaks the word of the LORD, and it is a word of scattering, of sheep without a shepherd. The lesson is not that God abandons His people, but that we slowly abandon Him — one alliance, one panic, one trusted arm of flesh at a time.
We read this in late September, when the year’s first fervor has cooled and the routines of autumn settle in. It is easy to begin a season with prayer and end it trusting in our own arrangements. Asa’s early cry — “we rest on thee” — is the prayer of a whole life, not just a crisis. The eyes of the LORD still search the earth today, looking for hearts wholly His.
Reflection
- Asa trusted God against a million Ethiopians but trusted Syria against one king of Israel — where in your life have you begun relying on your own alliances or resources rather than the LORD?
- Jehoshaphat had the book of the law taught throughout Judah, yet still said to Ahab, “I am as thou art” — what friendships or partnerships are quietly pulling your heart away from wholehearted devotion to God?
Prayer
LORD God of our fathers, Thou art the same yesterday, today, and forever, and Thy eyes still run to and fro throughout the whole earth to shew Thyself strong on behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Thee. Forgive us for the ways we have begun well and then leaned on our own arm — on money, on alliances, on physicians, on plans — instead of resting wholly on Thee. Give us the courage of Asa’s early prayer and the honesty of Micaiah, who spoke only what God said. Keep us seeking Thee with all our heart and all our soul, and let our work be rewarded. In the name of Jesus, Amen.