Spend time in prayer and silence with God asking Him to meet with you and speak to you.
Bible Reading
The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” Not since the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah, had any such Passover been observed. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to the Lord in Jerusalem. Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the Lord. Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.
– 2 Kings 23:21-25
Devotion
As part of the nation’s spiritual renewal, Josiah reinstituted the observance of the Passover festival. The Passover was to be a yearly reminder to the Israelites that it was YAHWEH who would deliver them from any/all oppressors. During the years of Judah’s spiritual decline, they had stopped celebrating Passover as they turned to the impotent gods of the nations around them. Josiah just doesn’t clean up the wickedness and idolatry, he replaces it with the worship of the One True God! Thirty thousand sheep and goats were sacrificed at this Passover. Josiah had cleaned up the land and called the people back to the worship of YAHWEH. Of course we understand that Passover was the foreshadowing of the Perfect Lamb of God who would one day come to deliver all mankind from the oppression of sin!
The Big Question
Just as Josiah ushered in changes that would have a positive impact on the nation, he also called the people to a deeper understanding of what it meant to be in a covenant relationship with God. Like the Israelites, we can clean up the outside appearance (having a form of godliness but denying its power) but God is more concerned with the condition of our hearts. What can you do to foster a more intimate relationship with God? Is God calling you back to a place where it might be necessary to make some changes in how you approach Him? Is He calling you to remember that He alone is your deliverer?
Conclude in prayer and silence reflecting on what God revealed to you today.