Read 2 Chronicles 13 and Haggai 1.
This devotional is about 2 Chronicles 13.
The Northern and Southern Kingdoms battled each other from the very beginning as we saw yesterday in 2 Chronicles 12:15e. The battling continued after Rehoboam’s son Abijah took over as king of Judah (13:1-2). Abijah was not content to wage war against his brothers in Israel. First, he preached to them about how they had forsaken the Lord (vv. 4-12). While he was preaching, however, Jeroboam decided to send troops behind him to attack from two sides (vv. 13-14). This gave Abijah the opportunity to practice what he was preaching. He had already claimed, “God is with us; he is our leader” (v. 12). Now he would have the chance to put that claim into action.
To his credit Abijah and his men “cried out to the Lord” (v. 14b). The Lord kept his promise and “God delivered them into their hands” (v. 17b). Make no mistake about it; Judah was outnumbered with only 400,000 troops against Israel’s 800,000 (v. 3) but because they trusted in God for victory, verse 18 says “…the people of Judah were victorious because they relied on the Lord, the God of their ancestors.”
Speaking truth to others is important but applying the truth to our own lives is every bit as important. If Abijah had preached to Israel about Judah’s faith in God but then surrendered when Israel surrounded him or, worse, cried out to another god, his message would have lost all credibility.
When you tell others around you what God’s word says and what God wants you to do, do you apply that to yourself as well? Every challenge we face in life is an opportunity either to apply God’s word to our lives or to have our own hypocrisy revealed. Be a person who both speaks truth to others AND follows the truth in your own life.