We have been looking at purpose during this month of January and in the past several days, we are focusing in on Solomon. Today we are going to finish up Solomon. Read 1 Kings 11:14-43. Solomon had turned away from God. He had gotten distracted by his foreign wives and he had been willing to put their wants and desires ahead of God’s wants and desires. He obeyed them more than he obeyed God. God saw this and God responded by raising up adversaries against Solomon. He tried to get Solomon to turn back to God, but instead, Solomon decided that he was going to just focus on his anger.…

As we continue to look at Solomon, we see that things did not go well for him. He had great success and had built the temple. He was very wise and God had promised to be with him in everything if only he would trust and obey God. God even reiterated this promise to Solomon and we read about that in the last devotional. However, then comes 1 Kings chapter 11, a disastrous chapter for Solomon. Read 1 Kings 11:1-13. Here we see that Solomon got distracted. He was distracted by women and all the seemingly wonderful things that this life has to offer. He stopped following God and was…

Yesterday we saw that Solomon had become king and he had a conversation with God where he received wisdom to govern the people. The next few chapters in 1 Kings (4-8), we see Solomon displaying this great wisdom and even going about accomplishing the amazing purpose that God had for him. Solomon built the Temple for the Lord, which was the culmination of his father David’s dream. Then we get to 1 King chapter 9. Read verses 1-9. God reiterates his promise and reminder to Solomon. Why would He choose that very time to do that? Solomon was at the height of obedience. He’d been faithful to do what God…

As we look again at Solomon today, we are looking at the same passage of scripture from 1 Kings chapter 3. As we see in the first several verses of the chapter, Solomon has been worshipping God and God comes to him and asks him a question that many of us wish God would ask us, “What do you want me to give you?” We can think of many things that we might answer God with. We often use our prayer time to bombard God with a litany of requests. Solomon’s answer was very interesting. He asked for wisdom in governing people. He did not ask for wealth and power.…

We’re going to spend the next few days looking at the life of Solomon. There are, perhaps, no better examplesin the Bible of someone who had great opportunity and who missed it. He had amazing purpose,but he did not live up to all that God had for him and there is so much to learn from his life. Today, read 1 Kings 3:3-15. Solomon has just been crowned king and the Bible explains that he did loveGod and he did follow God, but he didn’t give up all the evil practices that the others were doing in Israel at that time. So as a result, we find Solomon offering sacrifices…