Discipleship Pointers from 1 Kings 12

Fear of God as in Rehoboam’s case (12:24) is far better than fear of Man as in Jeroboam’s case (12:27). Fear God and seek God-fearing advice.

What happened to Rehoboam is a warning for us about whose advice we seek. Often we seek advice from people whom we know – who may not be the best people to give such advice. While it is not wrong to seek the advice of our friends, let us realise that their advice may not be the best. Let us seek wise advice.

But when we do have wise advice, we often are not willing to listen to it. Often we want confirmation of what we have decided!

In addition, we often ignore the Bible when we seek advice. We ignore the Bible as we think we know better or we do not know the Bible at all. So we have believers marrying non-believers (like Solomon) despite warning against this. We have people who worry all their time about tomorrow despite being told not to do so (Mt 6:31-34). And so on…..

Jeroboam could easily be a Singaporean – He was so kiasu (fear to loose) and kiasi (fear to die) that he created a new religion. Due to his fears, he gave up on God – who had put him in his position of power in the first place.

How about us? In our fears for the future, in our worry for tomorrow, are we moving away from God? Are we doing things that God would not be happy with? Let us remove these fears and – as Jesus said in Matthew 6:31-33 – “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’…But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”