DCLM Daily Manna 2025: DCLM Daily Manna 25 May 2025: The Duty of Serving God
Text: 2 Chronicles 29:1-11 (KJV)
Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah. 2 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done.
3 In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. 4 Then he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them in the East Square, 5 and said to them: “Hear me, Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry out the rubbish from the holy place. 6 For our fathers have trespassed and done evil in the eyes of the Lord our God; they have forsaken Him, have turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and turned their backs on Him. 7 They have also shut up the doors of the vestibule, put out the lamps, and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. 8 Therefore the wrath of the Lord fell upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He has given them up to trouble, to desolation, and to jeering, as you see with your eyes. 9 For indeed, because of this our fathers have fallen by the sword; and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity.
10 “Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that His fierce wrath may turn away from us. 11 My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him, and that you should minister to Him and burn incense.”
KEY VERSE: (2 Chronicles 29:11) My sons, be not now negligent: for the LORD hath chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, and that ye should minister unto him, and burn incense.
The world may be full of people who have scant ideas about what God expects them to do in this life. But some know their purpose for living; they have been called and handed specific assignments from God, but choose to stand aloof. Some blame other people or circumstances for their failure to fulfil their divine mandate. Yet, some simply wait for someone else to give them a push.
Right from the onset of his reign in Judah, King Hezekiah wanted to be different from his father Ahaz, under whom he served for 14 years. He saw that the central weak point in his father’s reign was his rejection of the true worship of God, shutting the temple and preventing the people from coming to serve the Lord. Therefore, in his first month on the throne, Hezekiah opened the temple and mobilized the Levites whose duty it was to do service in the house of the Lord. He commanded that they sanctify themselves and the house of the Lord, cleansing all filthiness from the temple.
He reminded them that it was because their fathers did evil in the sight of God and turned their backs to Him that calamities and destruction came on them. Hezekiah then publicly declared his resolve to enter into a covenant with the Lord, so “that his fierce wrath may turn away from them.” He stoutly admonished the Levites whom he described as “my sons”, to remember that God had called them to “…serve him, and that ye should minister unto him, and burn incense.”
No excuse is acceptable from any believer on why he or she should not serve the Lord. For a believer to become inactive or indifferent in the house of God is a mark of ingratitude for what Christ has done for us. A believer who has been sidelined by sin is expected to repent, reconcile with God, heed the admonitions of the Hezekiahs of our time, and promptly return to the service that the Lord has assigned to him/her.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: To die without fulfilling God’s purpose in one’s life is the ultimate failure.
THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: 1 Samuel 10-11
Daily Manna 25 May 2025
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