Tuesday 7 October 2014

SOLOMON: MAN OF WISDOM AND FOOLISHNESS




King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughters Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.
1 Kings 11:1-3


Appetites and Cravings

It's amazing the kind of different things expectant mothers crave for. A friend shared how he had forbidden his wife to eat stones until he realized her desire was so strong that she would secretly wake up during the night to feed on a stash that she had hidden somewhere in the house. Because we are born with a sinful nature, we come with cravings for particular sins and if left unchecked, they will lead us to our destruction.
Solomon is considered to be the wisest man that ever lived, yet there are some things that he did that were not wise at all like having 700 wives and 300 concubines. Think about this, if Solomon was to spend a day with each of his women, it would take him almost three years just to do that.

He had an appetite for something that God had warned them about; not to marry foreign women. In all his wisdom, Solomon was not able to contain his appetite for foreign women and they turned his heart away from God and that led to his down fall. Samson also found himself in the same predicament. He had an appetite for philistine women that he could not contain and that left him bound bald and blind. 

What about you and me? Are we consumed by appetites that are robbing us of our God ordained destiny? Yes you are born again and you love Jesus but what kind of appetites have you allowed to dictate your lifestyle? Is it an appetite for an illicit office affair? Or maybe you just have a big appetite for ungodly movies? Are you just so consumed with an appetite for beer and alcohol?

Yes you go to church and you want to serve God but you just cannot stay away from prostitutes. Or maybe its something like stealing you just love the thrill of picking things that are not yours and getting away with it? Or you simply have an appetite to tell lies? You just can't seem to satisfy you appetite for secular ungodly music and music videos and you are constantly trying to justify why you just have to feed these appetites.

Whatever it is weather you consider it big or small, the more you feed it the more it grows until one day like King Solomon you will not only have 700 wives, but three hundred concubines to add on to that. You and I need to realize that our fleshly appetites are driving us further and further away from our God ordained destiny. Like Esau are you willing to sell your birth rite just to feed your fleshly appetite?

Our flesh has a never-ending appetite for sin and it is always looking for its next meal. Yet by the power of God's Spirit, we can resist the temptation to feed our flesh and instead focus on the things of God. Like Daniel, Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego who hungered more for the things of God than for the things of men. Make up your mind today to feed your Godly appetites and not your fleshly ones.

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