Category: Faith in the Struggle

For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed . . . 2 Kings 21:3 We do it for a reason. This is something I find myself saying often in addiction medicine clinic. Frequently, as my patients tell the story of their drug use, relapse, and painful consequences, they find themselves asking…
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Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?” 2 Kings 20:19 When my kids were young, we used to watch that TV show where they play home videos which people have sent…
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And Hezekiah welcomed them, and he showed them all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. 2 Kings 20:13 I’m not an artist, until…
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And Isaiah said, “Bring a cake of figs. And let them take and lay it on the boil, that he may recover.” Hezekiah 20:7 Occasionally, I’ll come across the idea that an authentic Christian must rely on faith, rather than modern medicine, for healing. The idea simply, is that God can heal and that we…
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Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. 2 Kings 20:5   Occasionally, I’ll hear someone say that our prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us. Behind this statement is the idea that God is immutable – that…
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So they feared the LORD but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.  2 Kings 17:33 Whenever we meet new guys at the jail for our Sunday morning Bible study, my buddy and I tell our stories. As we meet new guys often,…
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But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived. 2 Kings 17:29 When I worked at the addiction treatment center where we treated those with gambling disorders, I would sit astounded…
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They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the LORD carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger. 2 Kings 17:10-11 Driving to work recently,…
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And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the…
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And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God, as his father David had done, but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before…
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