Don’t Dilute Your Devotion to God

As much as I love God, human nature programs me to dilute my devotion.  This scares me.I don’t want to become lukewarm in my love for God. When I read that King Solomon started out as a young, enthusiastic follower of Jehovah, but blew it over his life time, I get scared.   God answered Solomon’sprayer for wisdom, and gave him riches and power besides.  But the king ended up on a downhill slope and slowly corrupted his obedience to the LORD.00 wives or concubines, knowing that God had told the Israelites to not marry foreign women.   Even when he married the Egyptian pharaoh’s daughter, Solomon built her a palace away from Jerusalem, the Center of Worship, because he knew the Holy Place of God and pagan idols should not be near each other. Solomon knew he was doing something wrong, but he did it any way.As wise as King Solomon was, he disobeyed God over time by accumulating over 10Over time the people around him, mostly his wives and lovers, sucked their king down a corrupt path. In his soul, Solomon moved further and further away from love for God Almighty.Irony of ironies, as Solomon’s heart was disobeying God, at the same time the king was building Jehovah’s temple in Jerusalem.  I wonder if Solomon thought, “Ah, my action of building the Temple will make it right with God when I’m being a bit disobedient.”   Solomon might be saying, “Oh, I’m doing what God asked by putting all this energy and money into His Center for Worship.  So I figure, God doesn’t mind a little act of idol worship here, a little bit of lust there, a smidgeon of pride here, a taste of injustice there.  I’m good with God.”But after twenty years or so, Solomon was not good with God. God said to him, “Since your attitude is to turn to other gods, and not follow me whole-heartedly, I am going to tear this all away from you.  I’ll soften the punishment a bit because I loved your father, David, but really Solomon, how could you?”Help me not to compromise, Lord, the way King Solomon did.  Do what you must to keep me whole-heartedly following you – throughout my whole life.