Missed Opportunities - 1 Kings 13

Today we're going to examine a man in Scripture who needed help. A lot of help.
Part of his trouble came from the poor choices his father and grandfather made. He inherited their mess. The other part of the problem came from his own personal choices and sin habits.

His life was bathed in worldly thoughts rather than in spiritual things. He was nominally religious. He sometimes prayed. He knew the rituals of worship. He occasionally attended services. He heard the stories of the faith. But that was it. He claimed to belong to the Lord, but Lord declared, “He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord . . ." 2 Kings 13:11.

How many Christians fall into this camp? Nominally religious. They follow more in the steps of their worldly parents or friends than in the steps of their Lord. The sad point in this morning's text is that our man was so fixated on his problem that he missed the huge opportunity God gave him to fix it. God offers to help him, but it requires simple faith on his part. All he had to do was comply with God’s simple instructions. It was not hard. In fact, it was downright simple. So simple that a four-year old could have
accomplished what was asked. But that was the problem. He must have thought the command given to him to be foolish . . . childish, so he halfheartedly obeyed and failed to receive all that God would for him. See . . . that is the point, God often works in conjunction with our willingness to step out in faith.