Few leaders have ever lost so many followers, so fast as King Rehoboam. He listened to the wrong advisors, had the wrong attitude, refused to be a servant leader and lost ten out of twelve tribes of Israel with his very first major decision! Inheriting a huge kingdom from his father, Rehoboam lost most of the kingdom very, very quickly.
Of course huge losses in our personal lives sometimes happen instantaneously. However losses like Rehoboam suffered - caused by unwise choices or resulting from sinful actions usually don't happen suddenly. Normally we begin to sow the seeds of destruction for a while before we crash. Usually the major decision or the life changing sin does not come out of thin air. We have been developing an attitude or have been moving toward the kind of action that unless caught will end in deep pain. And then suddenly we go over the edge with our ultimate foolish decision or our major sinful blunder and we experience that great loss. Some people are surprised, but if we look back, we can see that there was a path clearing leading toward what became great loss.
That is why we need to be constantly growing character from the inside out. We need to be cooperating with God's Spirit so that His fruit is gradually growing in us, developing us more and more into the image of Christ. Of course we will sin and will make mistakes because we remain imperfect. But if we are growing toward Christ and becoming like Christ, we are very unlikely to ever make the decision or commit the sin that will result in great loss.
May we never experience the kind of huge, tragic loss of which we read in I Kings 12.
Of course huge losses in our personal lives sometimes happen instantaneously. However losses like Rehoboam suffered - caused by unwise choices or resulting from sinful actions usually don't happen suddenly. Normally we begin to sow the seeds of destruction for a while before we crash. Usually the major decision or the life changing sin does not come out of thin air. We have been developing an attitude or have been moving toward the kind of action that unless caught will end in deep pain. And then suddenly we go over the edge with our ultimate foolish decision or our major sinful blunder and we experience that great loss. Some people are surprised, but if we look back, we can see that there was a path clearing leading toward what became great loss.
That is why we need to be constantly growing character from the inside out. We need to be cooperating with God's Spirit so that His fruit is gradually growing in us, developing us more and more into the image of Christ. Of course we will sin and will make mistakes because we remain imperfect. But if we are growing toward Christ and becoming like Christ, we are very unlikely to ever make the decision or commit the sin that will result in great loss.
May we never experience the kind of huge, tragic loss of which we read in I Kings 12.
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