I was reading the story of Asa king of Judah in 2 Chronicles 14-16 today. Asa started strong but did not finish well. This story demonstrates that God is perfect and all-powerful and people are imperfect and make mistakes. As king, Asa came very close to being a great leader. He traveled a long way with God before he got off track and went his own way.
Early in his leadership he turned to God when he was in an impossible situation with army of the Cushites, which outnumbered his army by 400,000. God helped him crush the Cush army, that sounds funny. After that great victory, God brought peace to the nation for many years. But there was a bigger challenge on its way. Over the years Asa and Israel’s new king Baasha had conflict and Baasha actually became the aggressor and was building a fort city that threatened Judah. Instead of turning to God and asking for wisdom on what to do Asa turned to his own wisdom and bribed King Ben-Hadad of Aram to attack Baasha. It worked and Baasha was defeated and driven back. However this was not God’s plan and God sent a man named Hanani to rebuke Asa and warn him of his mistake.
Asa flew into a rage and jailed Hanani. He also took out his anger out on more of his followers. His greatest failure was missing what God could have done with his life if he had been willing to humble himself. His pride caused him to not finish well as a leader. He stubbornly held onto his failure until his death. We too can do this by not admitting our failures to God and asking for forgiveness. The ends do not justify the means. That thinking usually leads to sin and failure. Here are some lessons from Asa’s life for each of us:
- God not only reinforces good, he confronts evil
- Efforts to follow God’s plans and rules yield positive results
- How well a plan works is no measure of its rightness or approval by God
- When confronted about sin in our lives humility leads to success, anger leads to destruction
- When facing a challenge or hardship we should turn to God first and not rely on our own wisdom – seek wise counsel
- Our attitude when criticized shows our true character
- No matter how long we have been following God we must always be on guard, because we have an enemy that is always looking to take us out or cause us to rely on our own wisdom instead of God’s way.
No matter where you are in your spiritual journey, obeying God is always the best way. To obey him you need to know his will for your life and that is to become more like Jesus Christ in how you live, think and behave. Doing things God’s way can be very hard and may not seem to make sense at times, but it always leads to great freedom.