DAY 173 Read 2 Chronicles 25 and 26; 2 Kings 15:1-17.
Today's reading: Two fairly good kings brought better times to Judah. Amaziah served God, "but not with a perfect heart." His son, Uzziah (Azariah), followed the same pattern; but when "his heart was lifted," personal tragedy brought him low.
Memory gem: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).
Thought for today:
We can hide nothing from God. With their super X-ray, men can look through heavy layers of solid steel. So God can read the secrets of the hardest heart. As with mysterious radar the operator sees objects through the thickest fog on the darkest night, so, God sees through mist and darkness.
We do not know just how God knows our actions and our thoughts; we do not know the secrets of His radar, if we may call it that. But the Scriptures tell us that He sees and He knows.
Friend, we can never persuade our real selves that wrong is right. A person may wish to do wrong and pretend to others, and even to himself, that he has convinced himself that it is right. Yes, a person may try to rationalize wrong into right; but away in the back of his mind he knows--especially when he awakens at three o'clock in the morning and thinks--that wrong is still wrong and not right. Did you ever notice the words of Isaiah 5:20? "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!"
If a man puts his standard low enough, he can always make a favorable judgment concerning himself. If all other men were only four feet high, a man of five feet would be a giant. Some seem to think that by making others small they look quite good themselves. But, friend, the judgement which we face now in Christ, or later without Him, is not man's judgment, but God's.
Today's reading: Two fairly good kings brought better times to Judah. Amaziah served God, "but not with a perfect heart." His son, Uzziah (Azariah), followed the same pattern; but when "his heart was lifted," personal tragedy brought him low.
Memory gem: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).
Thought for today:
We can hide nothing from God. With their super X-ray, men can look through heavy layers of solid steel. So God can read the secrets of the hardest heart. As with mysterious radar the operator sees objects through the thickest fog on the darkest night, so, God sees through mist and darkness.
We do not know just how God knows our actions and our thoughts; we do not know the secrets of His radar, if we may call it that. But the Scriptures tell us that He sees and He knows.
Friend, we can never persuade our real selves that wrong is right. A person may wish to do wrong and pretend to others, and even to himself, that he has convinced himself that it is right. Yes, a person may try to rationalize wrong into right; but away in the back of his mind he knows--especially when he awakens at three o'clock in the morning and thinks--that wrong is still wrong and not right. Did you ever notice the words of Isaiah 5:20? "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!"
If a man puts his standard low enough, he can always make a favorable judgment concerning himself. If all other men were only four feet high, a man of five feet would be a giant. Some seem to think that by making others small they look quite good themselves. But, friend, the judgement which we face now in Christ, or later without Him, is not man's judgment, but God's.
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