Turn to God with all your heart and soul.

Scripture:
2 Kings 23:25 “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.”

Observation:
King Josiah was a great-X grandson of King David. The Bible tells us here that Josiah walked did what was right before the Lord and never turned to the left or the right. He did all that his father, David, had done. In fact, the Bible says that there was no king before or after Josiah who walked in righteousness as he did.

Application:
When I read of the account of King Josiah, I was amazed that he is credited as being more faithful to God than David, the great king of Israel. When people speak of ancient Israel and its greatness, they typically speak of David and how he conquered all his enemies, had peace all around him, walked rightly before God and was a man after God’s heart.

Josiah is said to have loved God with all his heart, mind, and strength. Jesus taught us that the greatest commandment is, “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, and mind” (Matt. 22:37). When we look at the first four commandments of the 10 commandments, they all have to do with expressions of our love toward God the Father. Jesus even went so far as to say the 2nd greatest commandment is, “Love you neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:38). Again, if you look at the last 6 commands of the 10 commandments they deal with expressions of love for one’s neighbor.

In Matthew’s account of Jesus saying what are the greatest commandments, we read that all of the Mosaic law and the prophets (the Old Testament) were summarized in these two. IF we could just grasp the truth of loving God and loving our neighbor, we would fulfill the Law of Christ in love. “It is easy to love God because he loves us. However, it is not so easy to love those who don’t love us or wrong us” (Jeff Jacob, personal conversation, 2010). In fact the hardest one to love is ourself.

My wife asked me recently, “How can a person love one’s neighbor if they don’t love self?” She was not speaking of herself but of people in general. She has a great point. Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourself. If one has no self-love, can one truly love one’s neighbor. Josiah loved God with all his heart, soul, and strength and took care of the poor, widowed, and oppressed during his reign. Out of his love for God, he loved others. It is impossible to love God and not love others including oneself. Thus, if you love God, you will love others and self.

Josiah was the greatest king in my opinion because despite the evil history of his predecessors and his progeny, he loved God with more than anyone including the great King David, writer of the Psalms and designer of the first temple. Josiah went one further than David because he sought God with all that was in him. We don’t read of any wrongdoing that Josiah did other than his persistence to fight Pharaoh in battle that cost him his life. Josiah might have had a little trouble with some pride then, but he was not involved in anything any king before or after him did.

We need to learn from his example about seeking God with all we have. The Bible tells us we no longer live under the law because it is a curse to those that break it and cannot give us righteousness that gets us to heaven. We get that only through Jesus, but it is worthy of note that Jesus said we fulfill the Spirit of the law and thereby keep it by loving God first and then mankind. In his becoming the curse for us, he fulfilled the physical requirements of the Old Covenant and established a better New Covenant through his shed blood on the cross. Where as the old covenant brought death, the new covenant brings life. We have part in that life by loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Of course we still have to accept God’s gift of love and eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord by confession of Jesus as Lord and believing God raised him from the dead.

Prayer:
Father, help me to not only understand the lesson of how Josiah loved you with all his heart and soul, but teach me how to do that. Show me how to love others as you love them. Show me how your heart aches when people live in sin and refuse you. Show me the joy of your heart when one person that was lost is found and returned to the fold. It is awesome that you would leave 99 to go after 1 who lost soul. I want to d nothing but love you as you love me and to express my love for others by the power of your Spirit. In Jesus’ name, Amen.