Solomon showed his love for the LORD by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.
The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” (1 Kings 3:3-5, NIV).
When I read this chapter I was struck by the opening verses. Solomon showed his love for God by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David. But there is a qualification….a but: he offered sacrifices at the high places.
The next thing we are told is that Solomon went to the most important of these high places and offered sacrifices…something we were just told was the one thing that Solomon up to that point did that did not show his love for God. Solomon could have offered all his sacrifices in Jerusalem where the Ark of the Covenant was (as he does in verse 15). But he goes to the high place instead…but God meets him anyway and asks that wonderful, gracious, open ended question: Ask for whatever you want me to give you.
The closer I read the accounts of the people in the Bible the more I am convinced that the main message in their stories is that they were men and women who God loved, blessed, and worked through, and fought for simply because He chose to, not because they were so good or because they had it all together. The storyline of Scripture is all about God and His graciously loving us in spite of the fact that we can’t keep from doing the wrong thing.
Have you ever had a similar experience? A time when God revealed Himself to you when you were in a place (be it spiritually, emotionally, or physically) you shouldn’t have been? I have. In fact one of my most vivid and personal encounters with God occurred in a dream when my walk with God was more like a walk away from Him. The dream was not even about me. It was a message for a friend of mine; a message that ended up being very prophetic. Not the kind of thing you would expect a conservative Reformed guy like me to admit, I know. But it did. One of the things I began learning from that experience is that God is not going to wait till I have my ducks all in a row before He will use you or me. His love for us isn’t based in our performance, but in His grace.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating being in a bad place or being disobedient or anything like that. God’s grace meets you where you are but it doesn’t let you stay where you are. It creates the desire to love God and to show that love in being faithful to Him; it creates a humility and meekness that leads to repentance when we sin, a repentance that is more than just sorry, but a repentance that brings the desire to not sin again.
But this side of heaven we are always going to be falling down and falling short. If God didn’t relate to us out of grace, He wouldn’t be able to relate to us at all. So while it is very clear that Solomon should not have gone to the high place, I am glad to know that God and His grace were there anyway. That gives me hope. I hope it does for you too.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 