2026-10-02
1 Kings 11:2 Solomon clung to these in love
“Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, ‘You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.” (1 Kings 11:1-4)
I have always invariably known that it would be impossible for me to pray after I had binged a show or watched a football match. Try as I might afterwards, I just cannot calm my mind or come to the tenderness of heart and spirit that is requisite if one is to sincerely lift his voice to heaven. At least that has been my experience. Yet despite the cost and implications that these and some other habits have on my spiritual life—on my devotion, on my purity, on my holiness, on my faith—I still somehow cling to them, and figure out a way to justify my indulgence in them. The Lord had warned Solomon that foreign women would turn his heart after their gods, but he clung to them still, as I have to to my sins, and to my idols. For many Christians, in spite of God’s unequivocal commandments, in spite of an outcrying and condemning conscience, in spite of Godly counsel and warning, in spite of brotherly and loving concerns for our welfare, we insist to cling on certain things, certain habits, and certain people, and to keep to our path despite it leading to death.
The question to ponder today is, “what are we clinging onto?” Does that thing help our obedience? Does it make us love God and our neighbour? Does it make us delight in God and long for home(heaven)? Does it make us conscious of God’s grace in our lives? Does it lead us to sorrow and an acknowledgment of our sins and onwards to repentance? Does it make us weep over our sins and the sins of the world? Charles Spurgeon in his devotional, Morning and Evenings: Daily Readings, for March 14 Evening, writes: “There’s nothing in this world to help a Christian’s piety, but everything to destroy it.” For as long as we insist to keep Delilah on our bosom, if we continue to entertain her questions and nagging, if we go on compromising, the day and time will come when we will wake up saying as Samson did, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. (Judges 16:20)
We should print out and pin to the wall above our study tables the counsel that John Wesley’s mother wrote to him regarding sin, if only we can look up to it often and be reminded to:
“Take this rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.”
Brethren, the end of all things is at hand; therefore let us be self-controlled and sober-minded, for the sake of our prayers. (1 Peter 4:7)
Prayer:
Omnipotent God, merciful Father, and good Lord, be merciful to us sinners. Grant us forgiveness for our sins, and that we may avoid and conquer all snares and temptations and harmful desires. May we completely shun inwardly and outwardly what you prohibit, yet do and keep what you command. May we believe, hope, love, and will in accord with your knowledge and power. Give us complete humility and piety that we may discern between abstinence and mortification of the flesh. May we love you, pray to you, meditate upon you in accordance with all that you do and think purely, soberly, zealously with a true and effective mind. In Jesus Name. Amen. (Taken from Anselm’s Prayer to God)