Wednesday Reading: Ecclesiastes 7:23-29
Key Verse: Ecclesiastes 7:23
23 All this I have proved by wisdom; I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me.
Devotion:
Our first impressions of King Solomon may well be that he was a very rich man and that he followed God because he built the great temple. But through all those riches and wisdom given to him by God, he wanted to find out more – what makes man that he is. In his wisdom he decided to have a go at just about everything to see what it is like, to see if that particular part of life would bring him happiness. But as this section of verse sounds out, his wisdom got him nowhere other than making him realise just how far short of the mark he fell in everything.
Here we have a king who is richer than anyone, has the most of everything and can have anything that he desires. To that extent he did do exactly that because he tried all manner of things; even having many women. That single act sheds light on his feelings here. He had tried having lots of women to see if that would make him happy, but instead he found out just how wicked he had become and how wicked the consenting women had been as well. He very quickly realised that no matter how much he tried to do for himself, he would always fall short of the mark when considering God and godliness.
He knew that God has created man as upright and he knew the scriptures enough to realise that man had brought sin upon himself. He also began to see just how carried away we get with our sins and how much it affects our lives and especially our relationship with God. It is not just our lives that we ruin by consenting to sin, but our relationship with God too. We can thank Him for giving us His Son to die for our sins, because that is the only way we can escape from them; but we need to be more aware of what we do so that we do not grieve the Holy Spirit as He resides with us...
Points to Ponder:
How many things do you do for fun?
How many would be pleasing in God’s eyes?
