July 20th, 21

Humble yourselves before the Lord. And he will lift you up in honor.  Hezekiah was someone who lived this out. He was a king who humbled himself before God. And because of this, God gave him great success. A revival broke out, and the nation was restored in worship. Things went well for Hezekiah because he humbled himself before God. But humility doesn't just happen to us. Humility takes some effort on our part. At the beginning of chapter 29, Hezekiah  says, Listen to me, you Levites, purify yourselves and purify the Temple of the LORD, the God of your ancestors, remove all the defiled things from the sanctuary. It took 16 days to clear out all the junk that was in the Temple, so that they could finally get to the altar to begin worshipping. It took some work. They had to humble themselves. This is something we have to do too. There is junk that needs to be cleared out. We need to bow our hearts to humble ourselves. The temptation is to ignore the junk that stands between us and God. Israel allowed the altar to become a junk room. And we can allow junk from our past. disappointments, fears, resentments regrets, stand between us in God, all that junk can rob us from experiencing God's presence. His encouragement is peace. We can keep storing junk. Or we can begin to take the time to clear it out. We can come humbly to God each day. Even as we come to the word in this podcast, we can allow this time that we share together to be a time where we humble ourselves before God. And when we do that, he will remove those barriers that we have put in place. So let us come boldly to the throne of grace. There we will receive His mercy. And we will find grace to help us even when we need it most. Let's clear up the junk. That's the prayer that I have for my own soul. That's the prayer that I have for my family for my wife, my daughters, my son. That's a prayer that I have for you. May it be so

You are loved!