Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Compounding Growth | The Writings | 2 Chronicles 22

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

Current habits and advice in your life right now can either move you toward or away from God. Which way are you growing? In today's episode, Tanya discusses 2 Chronicles 22 and the importance of investing in the person you want to become. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! 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 Chronicles 22

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. Have you ever heard of compound interest? My finance friends think it's pretty cool, and it's actually one of those things that once you see it, you can't really unsee it. Now, I'm not a numbers person, but it means that you put in money and that money makes money, and that money makes more money.

So for the sake of those who of us are non-numbers people, I'm going to talk for one second about the rule of 72, so you can understand how this works. So take 72 divided by your interest rate. So if you are in 7.2% interest, your money doubles every 10 years. Your 10,000 becomes 20, that 20 becomes 40, that 40 becomes 80, that 80 becomes 160. So if you invested 10,000 when you were 20, when you hit 60, that one investment is worth $160,000. Pretty cool, huh? Albert Einstein said, compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. But the way I see it, compound interest doesn't change your life very much when you first start investing. Ten years later, though, you'll see a statement. You'll be fairly impressed with what it can do.

20 years later, you'll see a statement and think that was a really good decision. 30 years later, you'll either be shocked at how much money you have or stoked about doing something with it. And if you don't, then 40 years later from when you first started, you'll either be really rich or dead. But the point is getting great advice to start earning compound interest isn't going to change your life very much today or next month or next year. it takes time. Good counsel, plant seeds of wisdom, discernment, and bigger picture thinking in us. It has the ability to slightly alter our day but dramatically change our life. Now unwise counsel plants seeds of deceit and doubt and disorder desires in us

and has the ability to affect what we do today and possibly fuel a force. flame we never thought we would light later. We can be shocked when we hear about people doing things that we didn't expect them to do, maybe having an affair or an embezzlement or a family crushing addiction. We can be shocked when we see ourselves doing things we didn't expect. And most of these things don't happen overnight. It's a small daily step towards something that looks like it's good, but it really isn't. Now in Israel's history, we're in the middle of the cycle of corrupt kings.

And this didn't happen overnight. It was a small step at first. It started with Solomon when he married an Egyptian woman, even though God warned against it. See, God had given Israel laws so they could live safely and wholeheartedly in the land that he had given them. Over time, though, the people moved the line further and further away from what God said. and closer and closer to the nations around them that were worshipping idols and making sacrifices that God said were not just unethical but absolutely wrong. The moral line that people were operating from slowly shifted away from what God said

and toward popular desire. Decisions were made about what was right and wrong based on what was happening in the world around them. society and modern culture and popular wisdom became their counsel. Now, in particular, there was a king named Ahaziah, who became the king of Israel at a very young age, because his father, Ahab died of intestinal disease. Now, Ahaziah was 22 when he became king. He only reigned for one year, and it's interesting what Second Chronicles 22 tells us about why his reign was so short and unsuccessful.

Basically, it's because he followed unwise counsel. It says he followed the ways of the house of Ahab because his mother encouraged him to act wickedly. And then the writer emphasizes the point and expands more and says he did evil in the eyes of the Lord as the house of Ahab had done, for after his father's death, they became his advisors to his undoing.

Now, the writer of Chronicles wants us to understand that Isaiah's downfall in one way was completely his responsibility for following unwise counsel. And on the other hand, it also came from God because he was following unwise counsel. Both of these are hard pill to swallow. Yet we experience it all around us. We see the way moral lines shift and what was once accepted is universally wrong. is now accepted as good. We see how things that we thought in our own lives were things we should stay away from, or not touch or not engage in, kind of creep towards becoming okay or acceptable,

and then kind of become part of our lives before we realize what's happening. Now, this is extreme, but consider Nazi Germany and what had to have happened before certain people were willing to put other people in gas chambers. And then take a look around. Where we used to treat other humans in our society with respect and dignity, we defame and dehumanize them. We call them names. We call out against them when there's things that we don't like. It seems like verbal attacks and outrage have become the norm. I think we should think about this question. Where do we get our counsel? Let's just look at a few examples. We can look at Instagram. It's lovely. It's great. I love getting on there. There's all kinds of things I learn about recipes. And there's also just things I know that are happening.

For example, there's a certain way a female should look in her clothes. There's a big message I get when I look at Instagram. What about X? There's a certain way you argue with people who disagree with you. Amazon, there's a certain way you should expect things to arrive immediately. Podcast, books. There's a certain way you should follow your dreams. There's a certain way you should know that the truth is inside you. Society, there's a certain way you should accept everything and hold your ground on nothing. Anything has the potential to beat your North Star, doesn't it?

But when Jesus was with his disciples, there was a religious group called the Pharisee. They were kind of always hanging around. They were waiting to catch Jesus, say something they could use against him. One day, after teaching the crowd, which included the Pharisees, Jesus called them hypocrites. He said, they honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. He said, it's what comes out of their mouths that defiles them. Now, the disciples were concerned about Jesus making the Pharisees angry.

they came to Jesus and said, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this? But Jesus responded, leave them. They are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. I wonder if we realize where we are sometimes following the blind. Now, some of the things we think are so hardwired in our brains, our thoughts just automatically go there.

we ourselves can be blind to our own thoughts. Psychologists talk about this. They say we have neural pathways that are like freeways in our brain, where our thoughts go 80 miles an hour from a stimulus to a thought or an action without even realizing it. But psychologists also talk about how we have the ability to form new pathways, to take a thought captive, to consider it, to do something different. For example, I hear someone say something I disagree with.

The thought I need to take captive is, this person is wrong. The action I need to take captive is say something right the second to point out that they are wrong. What I want to do is to create a new pathway. Wait, a new action, don't speak. Then if this is still on my mind later, I might need to engage the same. person in a conversation. If not, I can probably move on. Paul wrote about this exercise in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. He called it a fight with the flesh. He said, for although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh, since the weapons of our warfare are not of the

flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God. And we take every thought captive to obey Christ. Where is your counsel taking you? Where is it taking your thoughts? What kind of investment are you making in who you want to become? I don't know how much time I have here on this earth, but I hope my returns are growing more in line with Jesus.

so I can look back on my life and say, I used to struggle with that, and now I struggle with it a little less. And I used to respond like that. And now I don't do that as often. And I used to think I needed that. And now, well, I don't really want it anymore. That is what I hope for us

that we take our counsel from God's word, that we store it in our hearts, and we grow more like Jesus. Thank you.