“In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.””
2 Kings 20:1 (NIV)
This chapter is one of the places where Christians go to be encouraged to pray effective fervent prayers requesting healing to our great God. It is an amazing testimony about the love God has for His righteous servants, that when His servants seek His face with tears, God “changes His mind.” Depending on your theological framework - you may reject the whole concept of God “changing His mind”, but no one can read this chapter without realizing that this chapter teaches us that prayer changes our future and the future of our loved ones. Prayer is effective, especially – only! - when it comes from the heart.
As we prepare to consider the exhortation in Amos 4:12 to “prepare to meet our God” I thought we should think for a moment on God’s instruction to Hezekiah to prepare for our departure by “putting our house in order”. There are 2 sides to a death - we are leaving our loved ones and then meeting our God. God wants us to have our house in order when we leave our loved ones. In Hezekiah’s life, this would mean making arrangements for a son to become king, and setting things in order for a successful transition of power as David did in 1 Kings 1&2, and it also likely meant saying goodbye to his loved ones, blessing them for 1 last time as Jacob did in Genesis 49. In our simpler, more common lives, we still need to heed the Words of God to Hezekiah. We should if we have time, find a way to bless our loved ones, and we should have proper legal wills drawn up, as well as arranging all that we possibly can to protect our spouse or family member. I hope my house is in order when I die, I hope I am able to bless my children, I hope that I am in right relationship with all those I have interacted with, and I hope that all of my building projects are completed and Wanda doesn’t have a mess to clean up.
My son Matt sent me this link today to an obituary of a man whose house was not in order when he died. https://www.good.is/articles/mean-obituary-daughter I have no idea if it is fake news or real news, but I know this is the opposite of having your house in order.
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