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Pay Close Attention
The high places were not removed from Israel.
Nevertheless the heart of Asa was loyal all his days.
2 Chronicles 15:17
Asa did well by removing the abominable image his mother made for Asherach, but he failed to remove the idols from the high places in Israel. Asa was obedient in what he considered the most important areas by removing the idols and altars in Judah (2 Chronicles 14:2-4). He had personally removed all idolatry from his own life and commanded the people in Judah to do the same. He brought things his father Abijah had dedicated to God and placed them into the house of God (2 Chronicles 15:18).
What Asa did by not removing the idols from Israel is similar to what the Pharisees did in Matthew 23:23: “For ye tithe mint and anise and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone.”
Beware of ever thinking, “Oh, that thing in my life does not matter much.” The fact that it does not matter much to you may mean it matters a great deal to God. Nothing should be considered a trivial matter by a child of God. How much longer are we going to prevent God from teaching us even one thing? God keeps trying to teach us and He never loses patience. You say, “I know I am right with God,” yet the “high places” still remain in your life. There is still an area of disobedience. Will you protest that your heart is right with God although there remains some small thing in your life you have yet to remove? Nothing in our lives is a mere insignificant detail to God.
Some Christians extol their faithfulness to God because they are not a member of another religious group or cult or participate in the use of illegal drugs, immorality, or murder. Challenge yourself with this question: Are there some things regarding your physical or intellectual life to which you have been paying no attention at all? If so, you may think you are correct in the important areas, but you are truly careless and failing to concentrate or focus properly on all points.
We cannot afford a day off from spiritual concentration on matters in our lives no more than our hearts need a day off from beating. You cannot take a day off morally and remain moral, neither can you take a day off spiritually and remain spiritual. God wants you be entirely His, and it requires paying close attention to keeping yourself fit (1 Timothy 4:8). May we understand a vital point here? The amount of time we attend to matters which are problematic to us in our relationships with God determines the effort we put toward removing those problems. If we try to “rise above all our problems” with only a few minutes’ effort, we may be like Ephesians 4:14 - “children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine” and never come to “grow up in all things unto Him, who is the head, even Christ” (v. 15).
