{"id":1042,"date":"2012-08-22T23:55:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T23:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chadstutzman.net\/?p=1041"},"modified":"2012-08-22T23:55:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-22T23:55:00","slug":"lessons-from-the-life-of-king-asa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadstutzman.com\/?p=1042","title":{"rendered":"Lessons From The Life Of King Asa"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I was reading the story of Asa king of Judah in 2 Chronicles 14-16 today.\u00a0 Asa started strong but did not finish well.\u00a0 This story demonstrates that God is perfect and all-powerful and people are imperfect and make mistakes.\u00a0 As king, Asa came very close to being a great leader.\u00a0 He traveled a long way with God before he got off track and went his own way.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 God helped him crush the Cush army, that sounds funny.\u00a0 After that great victory, God brought peace to the nation for many years.\u00a0 But there was a bigger challenge on its way.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It worked and Baasha was defeated and driven back.\u00a0 However this was not God’s plan and God sent a man named Hanani to rebuke Asa and warn him of his mistake.<\/p>\n

Asa flew into a rage and jailed Hanani.\u00a0 He also took out his anger out on more of his followers.\u00a0 His greatest failure was missing what God could have done with his life if he had been willing to humble himself.\u00a0 His pride caused him to not finish well as a leader.\u00a0 He stubbornly held onto his failure until his death.\u00a0 We too can do this by not admitting our failures to God and asking for forgiveness.\u00a0 The ends do not justify the means.\u00a0 That thinking usually leads to sin and failure.\u00a0 Here are some lessons from Asa’s life for each of us:<\/p>\n