1 Kings 14

God sees what others miss

And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he is the only one of Jeroboam who shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam. ~ 1 Kings 14:13

 Have you ever noticed that sometimes the person everyone has counted out is the very person God sees differently? We tend to look at the whole family, the whole situation, the whole history, and make our conclusions. God sees the individual heart. In 1 Kings 14, there is a divided kingdom, a sick child, a deceptive father, false worship, and a nation that has wandered far from God. Yet right in the middle of all that mess, God points out something good in one person.

That should encourage us. Your circumstances don’t determine what God sees in you. Your family history doesn’t determine your future. The spiritual condition of the people around you doesn’t have to become the spiritual condition of your own heart.

Jeroboam had led Israel into serious compromise. He established false places of worship and created a system that pulled people away from the Lord. His wife secretly went to the prophet Ahijah because their son was sick. She disguised herself, hoping the prophet wouldn’t recognize her. But God had already told Ahijah she was coming.

I love that part because it reminds us that we may be able to disguise ourselves from people, but we can’t fool God. You can change your clothes, change your story, change your social media presentation, and even change your facial expression when someone asks, “How are you?” God still knows what’s really happening in your heart. And thankfully, He doesn’t just see the mess. He also sees the good He is working through it all.

Here are three truths we can carry with us as God’s people living in a world that constantly pulls us in different directions.

1. You Can Choose God Even When Others Don’t

Jeroboam had made choices that affected an entire nation, but his son’s story reminds us that one person’s relationship with God doesn’t have to be determined by the choices of everyone around them.

That matters because we live in a culture where it can feel like everyone is going in the opposite direction. Values change, truth gets questioned, and sometimes what Scripture clearly calls sin is celebrated as freedom. It can be easy to think, “Well, this is just how things are now.” But God’s people aren’t called to follow the crowd. We’re called to follow Him.

You may be the only Christian in your workplace who refuses to participate in certain conversations. You may have friends who don’t understand why you make the choices you do. You may have family members who aren’t walking with God right now. You may even find yourself surrounded by people who make decisions completely opposite of what you know God has asked of you. But you can still choose Him. Your faithfulness doesn’t have to depend on everyone else’s faithlessness.

There have probably been times when you’ve walked into a room and thought, “Well, apparently I’m the only one who thinks this is a bad idea.” Sometimes that’s exactly where God wants you to stand. Not because you’re better than everyone else, but because you’ve decided that God’s Word gets the final word.

Ask yourself today, “Am I allowing the culture around me to determine what I believe, or am I allowing God’s Word to determine how I live?”

2. God Sees What Is Happening Beneath the Surface

The prophet told Jeroboam’s wife that God had seen something good in her son. Think about that. In the middle of a spiritually compromised family, God saw a heart that was different. People often judge by what they can see but God always looks deeper.

We can become experts at appearances. We know how to smile when we’re struggling, say “I’m fine” when we’re anything but fine, and look like we’ve got everything together when internally we’re asking God, “What am I supposed to do with this?” But God isn’t fooled by appearances, and He doesn’t need to be and that is good news.

It means God knows the parts of your life nobody else knows about. He knows the prayers you haven’t been able to put into words. He knows the battle you’re fighting. He knows the temptation you’re resisting. He knows when you’re trying again after you’ve failed. He knows the small steps of obedience that nobody else notices.

Maybe you’re trying to rebuild your prayer life. Maybe you’re learning to control your words. Maybe you’re choosing forgiveness even though your emotions haven’t caught up yet. Maybe you’re trying to establish healthier boundaries. Maybe you’re simply getting out of bed each morning and saying, “Lord, I’m going to follow You today.”

Don’t underestimate those small choices. God sees them. We sometimes want people to notice our progress, but God doesn’t need an announcement. He sees what happens when nobody is watching. And here’s the encouraging part. God isn’t looking for perfection before He calls something good. He sees a heart that is genuinely turned toward Him.

3. Don’t Let a Compromising Culture Compromise Your Convictions

One of the saddest parts of 1 Kings 14 is seeing how far Israel had drifted. Jeroboam’s choices weren’t isolated. They influenced an entire nation. That is a serious reminder that our choices matter beyond ourselves.

You may think, “It’s just one decision.” But one decision becomes a habit. A habit becomes a pattern. A pattern can influence a family, a workplace, a friendship, or even a generation. That’s why we need to be intentional about what we’re allowing into our hearts and homes.

What are you watching? What voices are you listening to? What conversations are shaping your thinking? What opinions are you accepting without ever comparing them with God’s Word? We don’t have to run away from the world. Jesus called us to be light in the world. But being in the world doesn’t mean we have to let the world tell us who we are or what is true. Sometimes being God’s person in today’s world means simply saying, “That’s not what God says, so that’s not what I’m going to believe.”

It might mean walking away from a conversation that is tearing someone down. It might mean refusing to compromise your integrity at work. It might mean telling your children why your family makes certain choices. It can mean turning off something that continually feeds fear, anger, lust, jealousy, or discontentment.

And yes, sometimes it means putting down the phone. That little device in your hand can preach more sermons to you in a week than some people hear in a month. The question is, who is doing the preaching? In the days we live in, it is imperative that God’s Word is louder than the culture.

Today I want to encourage you to remember that God sees you differently than people do. He sees beyond your circumstances, beyond your family history, beyond your mistakes, and beyond what is happening around you. He sees your heart.

Let this chapter be a reminder that even when an entire culture is moving in the wrong direction, we can still choose to walk with God. We can choose truth when lies are easier. We can choose obedience when compromise is more comfortable. We can choose holiness when culture calls it unnecessary. We can choose faith when fear is shouting.

And don’t overlook the beautiful picture in this chapter. In the middle of a family and a nation that had made some terrible choices, God still found something good.

Let that encourage you today to keep choosing Him, keep listening to His voice, keep obeying His Word and keep making the small choices that nobody else sees. Remember that God sees them.

Your faithfulness matters more than you know, and what God is doing in your heart today can influence people you may never realize you’re reaching. You don’t have to fix the whole culture, you don’t have to convince everyone and you don’t have to carry the spiritual responsibility for everyone around you. Just be faithful with the life God has placed in your hands.  That act alone will produce your greatest testimony.

Today’s Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 14

1 At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam became sick. 

2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, “Please arise, and disguise yourself, that they may not recognize you as the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh. Indeed, Ahijah the prophet is there, who told me that I would be king over this people. 

3 Also take with you ten loaves, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him; he will tell you what will become of the child.” 

4 And Jeroboam’s wife did so; she arose and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see, for his eyes were glazed by reason of his age.

5 Now the Lord had said to Ahijah, “Here is the wife of Jeroboam, coming to ask you something about her son, for he is sick. Thus and thus you shall say to her; for it will be, when she comes in, that she will pretend to be another woman.”

6 And so it was, when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps as she came through the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why do you pretend to be another person? For I have been sent to you with bad news. 

7 Go, tell Jeroboam, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel: “Because I exalted you from among the people, and made you ruler over My people Israel, 

8 and tore the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it to you; and yet you have not been as My servant David, who kept My commandments and who followed Me with all his heart, to do only what was right in My eyes; 

9 but you have done more evil than all who were before you, for you have gone and made for yourself other gods and molded images to provoke Me to anger, and have cast Me behind your back— 

10 therefore behold! I will bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam every male in Israel, bond and free; I will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as one takes away refuse until it is all gone. 

11 The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Jeroboam and dies in the city, and the birds of the air shall eat whoever dies in the field; for the Lord has spoken!” ’ 

12 Arise therefore, go to your own house. When your feet enter the city, the child shall die. 

13 And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he is the only one of Jeroboam who shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.

14 “Moreover the Lord will raise up for Himself a king over Israel who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam; this is the day. What? Even now! 

15 For the Lord will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their wooden images, provoking the Lord to anger. 

16 And He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who sinned and who made Israel sin.”

17 Then Jeroboam’s wife arose and departed, and came to Tirzah. When she came to the threshold of the house, the child died. 

18 And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke through His servant Ahijah the prophet.

19 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he reigned, indeed they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 

20 The period that Jeroboam reigned was twenty-two years. So he rested with his fathers. Then Nadab his son reigned in his place.

21 And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king. He reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. His mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. 

22 Now Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, more than all that their fathers had done. 

23 For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. 

24 And there were also perverted persons in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

25 It happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. 

26 And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house; he took away everything. He also took away all the gold shields which Solomon had made. 

27 Then King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place, and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard, who guarded the doorway of the king’s house. 

28 And whenever the king entered the house of the Lord, the guards carried them, then brought them back into the guardroom.

29 Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 

30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. 

31 So Rehoboam rested with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. His mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. Then Abijam his son reigned in his place.

Journal:

• Where am I being tempted to follow the culture instead of God’s Word?
• What is one area of my life where God may be seeing progress that I haven’t recognized?
• Are there voices, relationships, habits, or influences that are shaping my thinking more than Scripture?
• What is one small act of obedience God may be asking me to take today?
• What do I believe God sees when He looks at my heart right now?