Jump Start # 1304

2 Chronicles 16:12 “In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa became diseased in his feet. His disease was severe, yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians.”

Asa was one of the early kings of Judah. He was the great grandson of Solomon. He served a long, long time, forty-one years. He is the first of the good kings. Recently, we started a class about the good kings of Judah. Asa was our first study. He did many great things to get the nation back on center with God. He tore down the idols that his father had set up. He removed his mom from being the queen mother after she set up a horrid idol. When a massive million man Ethiopian army invaded, he sought the Lord and they were devastated the invaders. He was compared to David, the greatest king in the Old Testament.

Asa made two mistakes late in his reign. When their fellow brothers, Israel, invaded, he did not seek the Lord. Instead he took money out of the Temple treasury and paid the Syrians to fight on his side. When a prophet rebuked him for not seeking the Lord, Asa put the prophet in prison.

Then our verse today. Asa had a personal problem, diseased feet. He did not seek the Lord, nor ask the Lord to help him. Instead, he consulted physicians. In just a few years the disease would take his life.

Asa is a reminder to all of us not to take our foot off the accelerator of our faith. There isn’t a time to coast. There isn’t a time to stop. Asa did. The end of his life was marked with continual wars because he failed to seek the Lord.

Jesus used a similar thought in the parable of the sower. One seed fell among the rocky soil. It sprang up immediately but it didn’t last. There was no depth in the roots. Later in the N.T. we are told about Demas, who abandoned Paul and went back to the world. Keeping your foot on the accelerator is hard.

When a person first comes to Christ, they are so excited. There is so much to learn. So many new people. Growth, growth, growth. But then life settles in. The newness becomes old. Other things pop up. Kids, life, jobs and the foot lets off the accelerator. We spend less time reading the Bible. Our prayer life is shorter and shorter. Things become routine for us. Then something happens and we fail to seek the Lord. We find ourselves standing in the shadow of Asa.

The mature faith is often harder to feed and maintain than that young faith. The preacher announces his topic will be on “Love,” and we groan inside because we have heard so many lessons on love. We think that there is nothing new, different, original that will be said. It’s like leftovers of yesterday’s dinner. It’s the same thing again. Without realizing it, our foot gradually lifts off that accelerator of faith. We coast on what we already know and what we have already done. If not careful, our foot completely comes off the accelerator of faith and we begin to drift without any power from above. Our choices, our decisions begin to reflect a life no longer governed by faith and Christ. Like Asa, we make poor decisions. Trouble looms over the horizon and we feel like we can figure it out on our own. Pride, stubbornness and the failure to understand that we always need the Lord leads to a weakened condition. This is just the moment that Satan has been waiting for. One moment, that’s all it takes. He plunges in with sinful opportunities, ideas and people. And like that, we can be in a real mess.

So the challenge before us is to never let up. Keep your pedal to the metal, as folks used to say. Don’t wait for others to keep feeding your faith, that is your job. Do it yourself. Here are some suggestions:

• Never stop bothering God with the things that bother you. This is prayer. If you are twisted up on the inside about things, if you have a health issue, if there are things that are not right, take it to the Lord in prayer. Seek God. If it is too little to bother God, then do not let it bother you. Jesus told the disciples to pray about their daily food. There are a lot of steps and people involved from the time something is grown, harvested, packaged, shipped, stocked, purchased and found in our pantry. Little things, big things—take them to the Lord in prayer.

• Keep challenging your faith by feeding it often. Don’t simply settle for reading and then closing the book, dig and dig deep. Ask questions. Find those answers. Look into why this happened. Think. Put yourself there and see what you would have done. Keep feeding your faith.

• Exercise your faith by doing things for others. Be the encourager. Be the one who sends nice cards. Be the one with a hot meal for a new family or new mother. Be the one who hugs. Be the one who supports and compliments the teacher. Be the one who helps. Use what you know. Teach. Invite. Show.

These are just a few simple things that will keep your feet on the accelerator. We remember that Paul said that he had “finished the course.” Finish. Many start but not all finish. Getting across that finish line is important. Dropping the ball at the one yard line isn’t going to win the game. That happened this past year in college football. A player thought he was in the end zone. He dropped the ball at the one yard line. The ball rolled into the end zone and a player on the other team picked it up and ran it all the way back for a touchdown. The first player didn’t finish. We must finish.

Asa is a great example of one who took his foot off the accelerator. Keep going. That’s the answer.

Roger