Daily Devotional For Thursday, June 18, 2026
Good morning and good day Southside. Our daily devotional today comes from 2 Kings 12:1-3:
“Joash began to rule over Judah in the seventh year of King Jehu’s reign in Israel. He reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother was Zibiah from Beersheba. (2) All his life Joash did what was pleasing in the LORD’s sight because Jehoiada the priest instructed him. (3) Yet even so, he did not destroy the pagan shrines, and the people still offered sacrifices and burned incense there” (NLT).
This king reigned for 40 years compared to his father who only reigned for one year. We know he came to the throne as king when he was seven-years-old (see 2 Kgs. 11:21). He was a very young king. The initial reading seems to give us a great impression of him. He did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight . . . EXCEPT . . . remove and destroy the pagan shrines to Baal, Molech and Asherah. So, what does it mean that “Joash did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight?” He means that he kept all the statues, ordinances and commandments of God (see 1 Kgs . 11:38).
Joash was almost killed as an infant according to the Old Testament. As we read above, a priest by the name of Jehoiada took him and taught him from the Old Testament Law. It was this same priest that hid him and protected him in the walls of the house of the Lord. This means that Jehoiada was similar to the prophet Samuel (see 1 Kgs. 12:6). King Joash was compliant to obey the Old Testament law as long as Jehoiada was present.
Even the best of kings in the south had failed to get rid of all these pagan idolatrous locations. Galatians 6:9 says, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough” (NASB). The same can be said about cancer – a little cancer can spread and infect other tissue. If you were told you had cancer, do you want them to get all out or leave some and just see what happens? If you are sane, you want all the cancer out – all of it.
By leaving these pagan idolatrous shrines in place, Joash was allowing “a cancer” to stay and spread through God’s people. Why he did this we are not told. We are told he did work on repairing the house of the Lord that had fallen into deterioration over time. He probably did not do this as a 7-year-old boy but later in his reign as an adult. We know that by his 23 year reign, no work had been done on the house of the Lord at all 2 Kgs. 12:23).
This is surprising since he had implemented 3 ways to get this done: (1) Turn the repairs to the oversight of the priests. (2) He raised funds to do it. (3) He established a way for craftsmen to work on it as they had the time. Had the money been embezzled? Where did all the funding go? He then came up with a different funding campaign and who would oversee the project and the money. This worked. The Temple was repaired and God was honored.
Reflection Assignment: The Bible says our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. What “spiritual cancers” are you allowing in your temple? What repairs, removals, and destruction do you need to do to bring your temple under the Lordship of Jesus Christ?
Scripture To Meditate On: 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, (20) for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body” (NLT).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, please help me to cleanse my own temple, to get rid of the spiritual cancers, sin, filth and the abominable idols in it. I do not want Your temple soiled with my sin. Help me to honor You with my body. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly