FBC Daily Devotional – December 29, 2020

Faith Baptist Church

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has started off well. Short week probably for most of us as we look forward to the

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New Year's holiday this Friday. I don't know what your work requirements are.

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You get half a day for New Year's Eve or you work the whole New Year's Eve but surely should have

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Friday off. So a shortened work week. So here we are at Tuesday, second day in and already.

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Well, we started talking yesterday about the struggle that a lot of people have with what we call post -holiday blues or post -holiday depression.

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And it's simply because of the emotional high of the holiday celebrations and leading up to all the anticipation of it and so forth.

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And then come crashing down when all of that is over.

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And I raised the question, is there any help for that? Is there any help to keep us from coming down when the tinsel and garland come down as well?

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Well, I think there is. I think we can at least be aware of the battlegrounds where this can affect us and then compensate for that and be on guard on those battlegrounds.

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We talked yesterday about the battleground of circumstances. And because of our circumstances, those circumstances can lend themselves to some powerful temptations.

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I'm talking about the circumstances of having a big celebration with all of the emotional high that goes into it.

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And then the celebration is over and that can open the door to some very powerful temptations.

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We saw that with David and his sin with Bathsheba. Well, today

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I want to zero in on a more specific kind of temptation. That would be the temptation of quitting, of not continuing on.

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So in the circumstance of post -celebration emotional high, beware of quitting.

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I want to see an example of the potential for this in 1 Kings, at the end of the chapter, 1

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Kings chapter 8, at the end of the chapter and then on into chapter 9. And the context here is that Solomon, King Solomon, has built the temple.

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It's now completed. And the last part of chapter 8, 1

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Kings, focuses on the celebration. And what a celebration it was. So verses 62 through 64 tell about the incredible dedication, sacrifices, and so forth.

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So listen to what it says. It says, then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifice before the

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Lord. Solomon offered as a peace offerings to the Lord, 22 ,000 oxen and 120 ,000 sheep.

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So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord. So he gave all of these animals to the temple, to the worship structure, rituals, and practices of the sacrificial system to be carried out at that temple.

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22 ,000 oxen, 120 ,000 sheep. This is the peace offering of the king.

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And it says, so the king and the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord. The same day, the king consecrated the middle of the court that was before the house of the

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Lord, for there he offered burnt offerings and grain offering and the fat pieces of the peace offerings.

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And so this incredible process of dedication, and there would have been a great deal of excitement associated with this.

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This is something that has been coming for a long time. It took many years to build this temple, and now it's done.

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And the people are elated. It leads to a national feast in verse 65.

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It says, so Solomon held the feast at that time and all Israel with him, a great assembly from Lebo Hamath to the brook of Egypt.

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That is like the whole of the nation. They held this great assembly before the

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Lord, our God, seven days. We know that song, the 12 days of Christmas and the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, blah, blah, blah.

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And then there's the eight days of Hanukkah. Well, this was a seven -day feast of celebration and dedication of the temple.

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And any of those lengthy times of celebration are experiences of great emotion and togetherness and all the rest of that.

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And that led, in verse 66, to an overwhelming joy on the part of the people.

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It says, on the eighth day, he sent the people away and they blessed the king and went to their homes, joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the

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Lord had shown to David, his servant, and Israel, his people. So overwhelming joy.

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I don't know if you can imagine putting yourself in that kind of a place, that kind of a position, but that was their experience.

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And at the conclusion of the matter, the last part of verse 66 says, Solomon sent everyone home.

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Everybody go home. All right, time to get back to normal.

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Time to go back to the routine. Well, now in chapter 9, the first seven verses, the

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Lord appears to Solomon and brings up the challenge that can face us after such a grand celebration.

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And the challenge is preluded by the Lord's promised presence in verses 1 through 3.

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It says, as soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and all that Solomon desired to build, the

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Lord appeared to Solomon a second time as he had appeared to Maccabean. And the Lord said to him, I've heard your prayer and your plea which you have made before me.

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I've consecrated this house that you have built by putting my name there forever.

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My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. So the challenge that the

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Lord is going to bring before Solomon here in a minute is preluded by this promise of his presence.

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And I find that interesting because oftentimes post -celebration circumstances can lend themselves to loneliness, especially if you've had a great celebration with all your family and everybody's together and you have a wonderful time and then everybody scatters and goes back home.

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And you feel this great letdown, this great emptiness, this sense of loneliness.

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Well, the Lord promises his presence. But then in verse 4, here's the challenge.

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The Lord said, as for you, if you will walk before me as David, your father walked with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I've commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules then.

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And he goes on. Now, here's the thing. Here's the challenge. The challenge is to keep on keeping on, keep on keeping on.

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Celebrations are fine. They're wonderful. They're great experiences in the course of life and in the rhythm of life, to have these great times of celebration.

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But it is in the routine of life where life is. The everyday routine, the day in and day out, getting up, going to work, doing your job, whatever that happens to be, carrying out your responsibilities that go along with your vocation.

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That routine of life is where life really is. Life isn't found in perpetual celebration and a perpetual party.

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So after the celebration, keep on keeping on. Don't quit now as if there's no reason to go on.

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The Lord says, I am with you. Just keep walking with me. Just keep walking with me.

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And then the Lord sweetens that challenge with hope in verse 5. He says, then if you will walk with integrity of heart and uprightness, he says, then

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I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.

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So there's this hope that is held out with the challenge to keep on keeping on.

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And the Lord holds out that, not the exact same hope to you and me because we're not kings, and he doesn't promise us our throne forever and ever.

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But he does nevertheless hold out the hope of his being with us and his blessing and his establishing the work of our hands.

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But he balances that hope with a warning, and that warning comes in verses 6 and 7.

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So he says, but if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I've set before you, but go and serve other gods in worship, then

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I will cut off Israel from the land that I've given them. So there is a warning against quitting, throwing up your hands in despair or whatever, and just in the post -holiday blues, just like, eh, what's it worth?

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And just giving up. No, there are consequences for quitting. So don't quit.

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Don't quit. Beware. Beware of quitting. Don't let the blues get you down so that you stop doing the routine things of life that you need to be doing.

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Spend some time with the Lord each day. Walk with him through the course of the day. Find yourself in times of prayer and carry out your day -to -day responsibilities faithfully and joyfully as unto the

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Lord. These are the routine things of life that we need to keep on keeping on doing, and I trust the

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Lord will encourage you to do just that. Let's pray and ask him to help us in this. So our

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Father and our God, we do realize there is a challenge to be faithful, to keep on keeping on.

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Help us to realize that with all the joy that comes with celebrations, that real life is found in the routines of life, everyday responsibilities that we carry out as we walk with you.

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Help us to do so faithfully. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.

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Well, have a good rest of your Tuesday and looking forward to winding down this year, and we have a couple more days of also considering some strategies for battling this possibility of post -holiday blues.