2 Kings 15:3: “And [Azariah] did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done, except that the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.”

August 9th, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Many generations before King Azariah, when the people of God first came into the land of Canaan, the people living there practiced their own idolatrous religions. They worshiped countless gods and idols in very immoral ways. The “high places” were the temples of worship that the Canaanites had built on the mountains for their idols. When God’s people came into the land, God commanded them to destroy all the high places (Num. 33:52). For their own good, God wanted nothing belonging to false gods to stand between Him and His people. But they ignored the command and let the high places remain. By King Azariah’s time, many generations later, the high places were still there and had become a stumbling block for the people.

Azariah knew of the Lord’s command and understood that God had not changed His mind about idols. The king second-guessed God, reasoning along the lines of “Yes, God did say that we should destroy them, but not yet.” Leaving space for sin in our lives still places a wedge between God and us. It is a sign of a divided heart, which is unstable and open to all kinds of temptation. Temptation will grab us if we become familiar with it by allowing our minds to dwell on it for a period of time. It is like young kids who grow up with toy teddy bears and then think that since the playthings are cute and cuddly, the real things must be also. In 1990, two boys scaled the fence of the Bronx Zoo in New York City and went into the polar bear compound. The next day they were found dead. Our pet sins can kill.

“LORD, we repent of our pet sins and turn from them now. Take them from our lives, we ask, in Jesus’ name.”