Closer Day By Day

Bible Passage: Haggai 1 Little is known of the author of this book. His name was mentioned in the book of Ezra, the year 520BC when king Darius reigned in Persia, and his name means “festival” in Hebrew, but his main purpose was to deliver his messages of few. First Message From the time when [...]

Bible Passage: 2 Kings 25 It all ends here – the downfall and utter defeat of both the northern and southern kingdoms. Those of us who have been following all the drama, rebellions and schemes, we reach the concluding chapter of 2 Kings on a sad note with the chosen people of God taken captive [...]

Bible Passage: 2 Kings 24 How often do we hear the above words in our lives? Maybe if we have young children or are teachers, we might hear it more often. But let us ask ourselves, even if we do not say these words explicitly, do we think them or act in ways affected by [...]

Bible Passage: 2 Kings 23 Not too long ago, OurKing’sWatchman commented that the kings he was talking about had similar names. S/he called them the ‘-oboams’ if I remember correctly. In today’s chapter, we too have kings that have similar names. I’ll call them the ‘je-jo-s’. As we near the end of the book which [...]

Bible Passage: 2 Kings 22 The Book of Law was collecting dust for at least 73 years before king Josiah of Judah reopened it. I would imagine the book being covered by a real thick layer of dust! Why 73 years? The king before Josiah, who was a king Manasseh worshipped idols and even placed [...]

Bible Passage:  2 Kings 21 King Manasseh, the son of a (kind of) good King Hezekiah whom we have studied in the previous two chapters, is described as “more wicked than all the Amorites before him” (v11). I pondered if the mere fact of his young and tender age (v1) when he was crowned a [...]

Bible Passage: 2 Kings 20 Hezekiah was sick unto death, in the same year in which the King of Assyria besieged Jerusalem. Verse 3 records how he wept bitterly in his prayer to God to remember him. “Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal [...]

Bible Passage:  2 Kings 19 Yesterday we had read about how Hezekiah relied on God  and did what was right in God’s eyes.  His resoluteness in following God is further challenged in today’s passage when the king of Assyria continued in his taunts and threats against the kingdom of Judah. How Do We Respond In [...]

Bible Passage:  2 Kings 18 Today’s passage has a king in stark contrast to the king we read yesterday.  In fact, the author of Kings gave a glowing evaluation of Hezekiah… He trusted in the LORD God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who [...]

I learned a new word today…. “Syncretism” Dictionary.com defines it as “the attempted reconciliation or union of different or opposing principles, practices, or parties, as in philosophy or religion.”  In Singlish, it just means a ‘rojak’ (mixture) of different forms or practice or belief. Now, not all syncretism is bad.  For example, the Malaysian culture [...]