3.197 Cleave to the Lord

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as Savory Salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. "Choose ye this day whom you will serve." My friends, have you ever actually held on for dear life? Now, I'm not talking about having a good tug of war here and there, or perhaps walking along a staircase and needing to put your hand off to the side.

I'm talking about holding on for dear life. What's the difference in holding on for dear life versus simply reaching out to something to help you along the staircase? And yet we have men and women like Hezekiah.

We have records of their stories here that show a different type of person. And it's a person that I think on those days when we feel like we're alone in our principles, when we are seemingly not having others support us in our attempts to keep our covenants, what can we turn to? Who can we turn to as an example?

Hezekiah is one of those. Perhaps not one that comes to the top of your list but one that could come to the top of your list after we look at our verse for today. Inside of 2 Kings chapter 18 we get several verses that describe Hezekiah and his actions.

So I want you to be aware of the choices that he makes on the front end of chapter 18. For simplicity in trying to pick one of these verses and for our message for today, I wanted to pick verse 6. But really verses 1 through 6 have a great description of what it's like for us to see a little bit into Hezekiah's world.

Verse 6 says this, For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments which the Lord commanded Moses. One of those was when I was certifying to be a ropes course facilitator. I was early on in life and I was going through all sorts of different types of certifications.

I always loved team building activities and activities that draw groups closer together. I had to reach up to get to the next rung, so they must have been six and a half or seven feet apart, each rung of this ladder. And it went way up into the trees.

And each of us to do this activity was only us and one partner. And the two of us had to figure out how to get up each of these rungs. And I can remember several times in climbing that ladder, holding on for dear life.

Now, we obviously had harnesses on and if we fell we were going to be caught by those below us that were handling the ropes of the harnesses. But the image is still burned in my mind. How hard did I hold on?

My friends, Hezekiah is living in a time when nobody around him is choosing to follow the covenants and commandments of the Lord. And yet he clave to the Lord. I think there is an opportunity for us to hold on to that image.

We sing the song "Hold to the Rod, the Iron Rod," and I don't think the Lord is encouraging us to simply hold on to it. The power of the Lord in our lives comes when we seek to cleave to the Lord. Hold on as if our lives depend on it because spiritually, I do believe our lives do depend on it.

Our relationship with the Lord is our top priority in the world. In this mortality, an opportunity to cleave unto Him, to seek His counsel in all of the aspects of our lives, whatever chapter of our life we're in. May we take an opportunity to identify the ways that we can better cleave to the Lord is an activity worth doing today.

As we reflect on the role that Hezekiah played in trying to help his people turn back to the Lord at a time when turning to the Lord was certainly not popular. That is all for today, my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this.

Step forward in faith and let's be savory salt. We will be here tomorrow and we hope you are too.