Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. He did right in the sight of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart. 2 Chronicles 25:1-2.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Faith makes a way and every day is your day. Faith makes a way even if it must move a mountain. And every day is your day if you see it that way and make it fruitful by doing all unto Me for the praise of My glory. And that is miracle ground. Walk out the life of good deeds I prepared for you in advance in Christ Jesus.
Make each day the best day by spending it with Me. We can redeem the time and order your day aright together. I never meant you to do anything without Me. Seek good and not evil. Forge out your future with Me today.
Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory. Psalm 73:25.
I have hold of your right hand, for I stretch My hands out to you all the day to be your helper and your comforter, your protector and your guide, but many of you will not take hold of My hand or, if you have, you will not keep holding on. But I am your portion, your source, your friend, and your savior. And blessed are those who take refuge in Me.
But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord LORD my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works. Psalm 73:28.
There is no one who loves you as I do, no one who cares for you as I do, and no one who knows you as I do.
Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26.
I am the strength of your heart. I look at the heart to know you. Guard your heart with all diligence for from it flow the issues of life.
God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7.
Whatever you do check your intentions. It should not be just to look great in the eyes of men but it should be done with your eyes on Me, unto My glory, which is the exercise of My power in love to produce goodness and eradicate all evil. And I invite you to be part of that by putting My own power in you to love and do good by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
By looking at your heart, I mean I look at the thoughts and intentions you are dwelling upon in your inner self where no one sees but Me. I know your thoughts from afar and before a word is on your tongue I know the whole of it. I am familiar with all your ways. I know what pleases you and what does not. I love to surprise you with the good things you love and desire during the day. But many miss them because their hearts are loaded with cares, anxieties, lusts, and ill will towards those around them. It is from the heart that goodness flows, but it is also from the heart that evil flows.
“But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, [a]fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.” Matthew 15:18-20.
There was a king of Judah named Amaziah. He was the son of Joash. Joash became king at the age of seven years old and he was guided in all his ways by the High Priest Jehoiada. He was zealous for My house and did what was right while Jehoiada was guiding him, but when Jehoiada died, Joash listened to the elders of Judah and joined with them in turning away from Me to useless idols and he filled My house with them. The people followed Joash and My Word was rejected as they worshipped the idols of the nations around them who were enemies to them. Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; tried to bring the people back to their prosperity and warned them, “Thus God has said, ‘Why do you transgress the commandments of the LORD and do not prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, He has also forsaken you.’” So they conspired against him and at the command of the king they stoned him to death in the court of My house. Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness which his father Jehoiada had shown him, but he murdered his son. 2 Chronicles 24:20-22. Jesus talked about this to the scribes, Pharisees and priests:
“Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them. So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs. For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will [ai]persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation.’ Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.” Luke 11:47-52.
After the death of Joash, his son Amaziah became king at twenty-five years old, like his father Joash, he began his kingship doing what was right before Me, but he, like his father, did not do so with his whole heart.
He did right in the sight of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart. 2 Chronicles 25:2.
Why do I mention the whole heart? You believe with your heart. Faith and faithfulness are of the heart. By the heart I mean the real you that you are in your inner self, the you of spirit and soul that is forever. If your faith is only through mental assent but it has not landed in your heart, you will turn to idols easily. Amaziah started out very well and was victorious when the neighboring armies attacked in taking them down with Me but after I gave him an amazing victory over the Edomites, he took their idols and worshipped them, even though they had not been able to save the Edomites from defeat.
When I sent My prophets to correct him and the people who followed his example, in his pride he rejected that counsel and threatened to kill them, as his father had done. Amaziah ended up destroying his life, which had before he turned to idols had been nothing but victory, by the devil whom he had let in his heart. If your whole heart is not turned towards Me but is looking elsewhere to seek what you think you cannot have with Me, which was the case with Adam, you have left a place for the devil. And he will turn against Me by the enticements of sin or by offense to your pride and excessive involvement with self.
Remember the same happened to the disciple Judas when he allowed Satan to enter his heart. Once in his heart, Satan turned to be his accuser and led Judas to destroy himself. Samson gave his heart to the enemy and that destroyed him as well. Be careful to whom you give your heart, to what and whom you allow into your heart.
Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23.
“Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap; for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth.” Luke 21:34-35.
“I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the innermost parts, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:10.
I chose David because of his heart. I forgave, loved, liked, and was faithful to David because his heart was always right. He did right in My eyes with a whole heart. He was loved Me above everything else. He never so much as glanced at an idol except to cut it down. He understood that I am love. He knew that in Me he had the best. When you have the best you are at rest and are not looking elsewhere for something that would benefit you more. He never let himself forget any of My benefits. Psalm 103:1-5.
David never attributed anything that came against him in his life to Me. He instead referred it to Me to take it down. He never thought of Me in any way but as his champion, his hero, his refuge, his fortress, his shepherd, his defender, his shield, his strength, his rock, and the God of his gladness and joy. He wanted to dwell in My house continually to gaze upon My delightfulness and inquire of Me all the details of his life.
What put David’s heart right whereas so few others have been so totally committed to Me? I will tell you in one word: Gratitude. David gave Me constant thanks. Psalm 34 shows his opinion of Me, and he wrote this while he was hiding in caves as he ran from Saul and was at first not accepted by the Philistines when he fled there, in the midst of all that he praised Me and rendered thanks onto Me constantly and sincerely from his heart.
I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the LORD, the humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together. I sought the LORD, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. Psalm 34:1-4.
He sought Me in every time of his life with the confidence that I was his helper. He sang that he would not fear even if an entire army came against him because I gave him the strength to take down a troop and with My help he could leap over a wall.
He knew the great things I had done and continued doing for him, even before I put him in the palace I had built for him as king of Israel and Judah. When he was hiding in dark caves as an exile from his beloved Israel being chased as an outlaw by Saul he had nothing but gratitude for how I protected and defended him and hid him in the shelter of My presence till harm passed by. Under the shadow of My wings, the angelic host, he sang for joy. He awakened the dawn with his song.
Nothing that came against him could take his love and attention off My goodness.
O taste and see that the LORD is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! O fear the Lord, you His saints; for to those who fear Him there is no want. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; but they who seek the LORD shall not be in want of any good thing. Psalm 34:8-10.
David loved Me with his whole heart, mind, soul, and strength and he loved his neighbor as himself. He never maligned or spoke evil of Saul. He loved and esteemed Saul’s son Jonathan. He wrote beautiful thoughts about them when they died in battle. He looked for a descendant of Jonathan to bless him and fulfill the covenant he had made with Jonathan. He had no resentment, only awe for how I had worked everything for his good. He was confident of My love for him. My Spirit rushed upon David when Samuel anointed him as king, and My Spirit never left him. And he understood that. He valued My presence, My Spirit upon him, above life itself.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Psalm 51:10-12.
And when I made him the promise that I would build a house for him and one of his own descendants according to the flesh would be king forever, ruling from David’s throne, he was overwhelmed with gratitude.
Then David the king went in and sat before the LORD, and he said, “Who am I, O Lord (Adonai) LORD (Yahavah), and what is my house, that You have brought me this far? And yet this was insignificant in Your eyes, O Lord (Adonai) LORD (Yahavah), for You have spoken also of the house of Your servant concerning the distant future. And this is the custom of man, O Lord (Adonai) LORD (Yahavah). Again what more can David say to You? For You know Your servant, O Lord (Adonai) LORD (Yahavah)! For the sake of Your word, and according to Your own heart, You have done all this greatness to let Your servant know. For this reason You are great, O Lord (Adonai) LORD (Yahavah); for there is none like You, and there is no God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” 2 Samuel 7:18-22.
David knew of Jesus, he called him “Adonai.” You know this if you have read Psalm 22, it is David’s eyewitness account of the crucifixion of Jesus written by David a thousand years before it happened in time. Jesus called Himself the root and offspring of David. He even quoted Psalm 110 showing Himself as “Adonai.”
Gratitude makes all the difference between a hard heart to Me and an open heart that is wholly towards Me. I look for grateful hearts to dwell in.
For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. 2 Chronicles 16:9.
I warned the Israelites in their constant complaining and grumbling that because they did not serve Me with a joyful and glad heart for the abundance of things I had showered upon them that they would lose it all to the destroyer. What you do not value, the devil can easily take away from you.
“And my hand reached to the riches of the peoples like a nest, and as one gathers abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth; and there was not one that flapped its wing or opened its beak or chirped.” Isaiah 10:14.
If you complain, blame, and grumble you will lose what you have because you did not appreciate what you had or even use it to the full, you will miss your promised land that I have all prepared for you and you will blame Me that you missed it! This is not a whole heart to Me. It is a heart of unbelief and a critical spirit, which gives an open door to the devil to enter your heart and destroy you with your own hands.
It is the heart of the one who trusts in the flesh who ends up like a barren bush in the desert that does not see good when it comes but just lets it go right by.
The struggle is in the flesh and your mind, if you just walk over into the spirit, it is walking in the Spirit that disarms the flesh. It is all where you put your attention.
My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them and health to all their body. Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; turn your foot from evil. Proverbs 4:20-27.
I love you. Sanctify Christ in your hearts. Ponder what He has done for you and who you are in Him and you will be all in with your whole heart for so great a Salvation.