Daily Devotional For Wednesday, June 10, 2026
Good morning and good day. Today’s devotional comes from 1 Kings 12:25-33:
“Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and lived there. And he went out from there and built Penuel. (26) Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will return to the house of David. (27) If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will return to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” (28) So the king consulted, and made two golden calves, and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt.” (29) He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. (30) Now this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan. (31) And he made houses on high places, and made priests from among all the people who were not of the sons of Levi. (32) Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. (33) Then he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and he instituted a feast for the sons of Israel and went up to the altar to burn incense” (NASB).
What a tragic story this is in 1 Kings 12. God has promised Jeroboam that if he obeyed the Lord and did what the Lord wanted, God would bless him (see 1 Kings 11:37-39). All God asked Jeroboam was to trust Him from this point forward as king. Despite this warning and becoming king, Jeroboam, who had proof that God could be trusted from hearing stories about David and Solomon, decided God was not worth it.
This is nothing new. If we go all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve felt God could not be trusted. We have a tendency to think we know better than God. Jeroboam felt this way also and at times we do too. His decision was to build new altars with new gods – one in Bethel, where they have stories about Abraham and Jacob, and one in Dan, the most extreme boundary. The gods he gave them were golden calves, a sign of fertility. He said these false Canaanite gods had got the people out of Egypt – sound familiar? This happened when Moses went up on the mountain and the people convinced his brother Aaron to make for them a golden calf (see Exodus 32:4, 8, 11). Jeroboam wants his own feast/festival to compete with the festival/feast at the temple.
As a new king, Jeroboam felt he had to institute new structures and systems to guarantee his reign as David and Solomon had done (see 1 Kgs 4:1-19; 2 Sam. 5:15-18; 2 Sam. 20:23-26). What was the difference? Both David and Solomon had only sought the Lord’s guidance on this. Jeroboam sought his own opinion and the opinions of others to do this. So, the first thing Jeroboam did was to dedicate his own temples to imitate what Solomon did in building the temple in Jerusalem – the text says he “built” his own cities. The problem is he built them for the wrong reasons and of the wrong purposes. Instead of appreciating the kingdom that David had left him through Solomon, he feared that his kingdom would return to the house of David. The Bible says he reasoned in his “heart” what he ought to do rather than praying in his heart to the Lord what he should do.
We read this and wonder, “Jeroboam, what are you thinking and doing? You should know better.” He told the people that the Temple in Jerusalem was a lying scheme and that his two young golden bulls were the gods that brought the people out of Egypt. By the time we get to 2 Kings 23, the Jews are making sacrifices to another Canaanite god – Molech. Do you know what they sacrificed to Molech asking him to bless them, grow their crops, increase their livestock and give them good health, their new born babies. Can you believe that? They would literally take a new-born baby and carry it to the sanctuary of Molech, where there was an intense fiery altar and place that new-born baby right in that fire.
How shocking and appalling to us today. We ask, “How in the world would they do this? Where were their parental instincts of love and protection for that baby?” It goes to what Jesus said about the devil in John 8:44, “You (religious leaders) are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (NASB).
When I read this I think of the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 1:25-32, especially verse 28, “God gave them over to a reprobate mind . . .” Jeroboam lied repeatedly to himself and to the people to lead them into spiritual deception and darkness. Jeroboam begins to spread a false gospel and to convince the people, he made it more accessible to them by having two different locations to travel to in order to worship his false gods. Consider his deception – Bethel in Hebrew means “the house of God.” This was to distract the people from the Temple being the house of God to Bethel being the house of God. To do this in Dan was not so challenging, since Dan had a history of idol worship (see Judge 18:27-31).
Yet, we have our own idols today. One of them is the “American Dream.” This stresses health, wealth, materialism, power, prestige, and positions. We prefer to build our kingdom and not God’s kingdom. We get ourselves so far in debt due to greed that we convince ourselves we have to keep God’s tithe for ourselves. We max out our time for a career so we convince ourselves we don’t have time to serve God and His church. Oh, we have our idols and we willingly sacrifice what is precious in God’s sight on their altars.
Reflection Assignment: We may be repulsed by how the decision by Jeroboam eventually led to baby/child sacrifices. Take a minute – ask God, “God, what are my idols?” Ask Him. Ask Him what lies you believe are the truth from the devil that are evident in your idols? Ask Him. Ask God, “Where in my Temple is my worship fake?" Ask Him. Confess and repent from them.
Scripture To Meditate On: Exodus 20:3, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (NASB).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, I really do not want any other gods or idols before You. Please show where I have them so I can get rid of them with Your help. I do not want to believe in more lies from the devil nor lies to myself. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly