Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Abide in Jesus | Historical Books | 2 Kings 15:1-26

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Do you try to control things you can't? What separates you from Jesus? What does it mean to abide? In today's episode, Tanya shares how 2 Kings 15:1-26 encourages us to turn to Jesus, the true vine. If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Kings 15:1-26

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. So I like you, where a lot of different titles, I'm a mom, I'm a daughter, I'm a wife, I'm a coworker. And there are days when I feel like I'm failing at all of them. A bad mom, a bad daughter, a bad wife, a bad worker. Usually, these happen at the same time. And I run out of time, energy, and patience.

I feel like there's not enough of me to go around. And if there's not enough of me, then I believe I am surely letting everyone down. When I feel this way, I notice that I move through phases. I'll call them shouldn't, could, and should. Here's my shouldn't phase. Compare, give up, lash out. I could read a book about productivity,

plan my priorities, and say no to things that don't matter as much. I should. Ask for help. Look to Jesus and remember the bigger story. I listed these as three categories. Shouldn't could and should, but truthfully, they're more like the steps that I travel through before turning my eyes and my mind to God and finding peace again. But what if we didn't have to do that? What if I didn't have to wait until I spiraled? What if I started here? T.S. Eliot wrote, for us, there's only the trying. The rest is not our business. The trying. That's what's mine. I'm called to love my family,

to work hard, to encourage others, but the rest, that's not my business. I can't control how my mom feels on any given day. I can't control how my kid's day goes, and I can't control every ripple in my workplace. And that's okay. Because in God's greater story, my mission is control. It's to show up as his beloved child. So how does that tie into our passage today into Second Kings and the downward spiral of Israel's dynasties? Well, because even then, God is reminding his people. It's not about being in control. It's always about being his. In Second King's 15, we reached the fourth generation of the divine promise that God gave to Jehu. The Lord said to Jehu, Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do,

your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. Well, that's where we find ourselves in this chapter. Rains changing and rapid succession at this point. Some kings are lasting only weeks or months. If this were a racetrack, Israel is speeding faster and faster toward decline. God has ceased deliverance and judgment lies just around the corner. Five rains are recorded. in quick succession in this chapter.

Each king comes to the throne, loses the throne, and dies to be replaced by another. Now remember what we just said about control? From our view, it's easy to see how fleeting control is, but for each of those kings, how hard it must have been for them to see it that way?

How often do we find ourselves doing the same? Gripping the reins of our little kingdoms, trying to hold on, even as they crumble in our hands. So there's a tree that lies across a footbridge on one of my favorite running paths, and the tree has been down for over a year. When the tree first fell, first of all, it was shocked, a little frustrated that I couldn't get across the bridge, but the tree still looked alive.

It had green leaves, the timber was nice and flexible, but in the last year, Hornets have moved in and filled the tree. The bark is brittle, and the leaves. are completely gone. The tree is still covering the bridge because it's propped up on there, but there's no life left in the tree. It stands in stark contrast to the alive and vibrant woods around it. I think of that tree and the passage or the verse from John 155 where Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I and you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Well, that's also the picture.

of Israel in 2nd Kings 15, still standing, but withered inside. And it's the picture of what happens to us when we drift from God, when we trade abiding for striving and connection for control. So what are the things that threaten to separate you from the nourishment of the true vine, your father? What thoughts, what behaviors, what distractions, what addictions, what things are pulling you away from his presence? When I feel drained, I can turn outward and I can blame others. I can turn inward and go into self-criticism or self-pity. But what if I turn toward Jesus, the true vine instead?

What if I ask him to meet me, to remind me of his promises, to restore my peace, to give me vibrancy and life in him? What if I remember that apart from him, any throne that I try to build will crumble, and any control that I cling to is going to fade just like those kingdoms dead. Paul writes in Philippians 313 and 14, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal.

What's that goal? To win the prize, for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. That is our invitation, to live for eternity, to lead our children, our homes, our work, ourselves, lives, not out of control, but from connection to Christ. Nancy Guthrie puts this beautifully. I read a little book of hers that's praying through the Bible in a year for your kids, but this is just one of the passages in that book. She writes this, a focus on heaven and a growing

sense of anticipation of what awaits us there and plants in us and our children the perspective shaping reality that the grandest experiences and the greatest pleasures of this life will never fully satisfy us, but our foretaste of the ultimate satisfaction of our future home. So maybe the goal isn't to be at all, to do it all, to hold it all, or to fix it all. Maybe it's simply to abide, to keep trying, to keep loving, to keep trusting that the one who began a good work in us will bring it to completion in the day of Christ Jesus. Amen.