Today's bite-sized Biblecast takes a deep dive into 1 Kings 15, where we explore the reign of King Asa of Judah. Asa stands out as a king who did what was right in the sight of the Lord, a refreshing narrative amid a very rough time of division and idol worship in Israel's history. His actions included completely ridding Israel of idol worship, even holding his own mother accountable for her idolatry. To be specific, he doesn't just scold her or verbally disapprove of her practices - he removes her from her station as the queen mother.

This opens a deeply important conversation about leadership, accountability, and what we as Christians should be willing to accept in terms of behavior from those in power (particularly those who claim the name of Jesus). To put it frankly, friends, we need to hold Trump accountable for his blasphemy this week. And this starts by having conversations with those around us who still support him. Let's dig in together.

Takeaways:

• In the Old Testament, King Asa held his mother accountable for idolatry, illustrating the importance of accountability in leadership.
• We have a responsibility to demand accountability from our leaders, especially those who claim to follow Christ.
• Having tough conversations with friends and family about their political support is crucial for holding each other accountable.
• The recent blasphemous actions of Donald Trump (specifically him posting an AI-generated picture depicting him very clearly as Jesus then blatantly lying about it, saying he thought it was showing him as a doctor) give us the opportunity to practice what we preach and hold him accountable.
• Examining our beliefs and how they align with our faith is essential for being true followers of Christ.
• It’s important to engage in discussions about accountability, and doing so without blatant confrontation is possible.

Want a more grounded, sustainable walk with Jesus but feel like your life and brain are too loud? The free Noise Journal helps you spot what’s really draining you and make a simple plan to clear it in one hour. Download it here!

Social Media Links:

⁠Instagram: @rachelgrit⁠

⁠TikTok: @rachel.grit⁠

⁠Pinterest: @rachgrit⁠

⁠YouTube: @rachelgrit

If you only have a couple minutes for scripture today, I got you.

Welcome to today's bite sized Bible cast.

We are kicking it back to the Old Testament today.

We are in First Kings, chapter 15, starting in verse nine.

And I am reading out of the NRSVUE.

This is my new Bible.

I'm not a huge fan of the Bible itself.

Let me think about how I want to say this.

I don't love the formatting of this Bible, but it is what it is.

We're making it work and this is a really timely passage.

I want to end up sending this to some people.

Okay, so let's get started.

In the 20th year of King Jeroboam of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah.

He reigned 41 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Makah, daughter of Abishalam.

Asa did what was right in the sight of the Lord as his father David had done.

He put away the illicit priests out of the land and removed all the idols that his ancestors had made.

He also removed his mother Maacah from being Queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah.

Asa cut down her image and burned it at the Wadi Kidron.

But the high places were not taken away.

Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his days.

He brought into the house of the Lord the votive gifts of his father and his own vote of gifts, silver, gold and utensils.

Now, I don't know how much attention you pay to the news, but there was a certain authority figure who this week posted an image of himself as Jesus.

Now, he has since tried to walk it back and say, oh, I thought I was a doctor.

I'll just put the image up here so you can see we are dealing with some incredibly clear blasphemy here.

Now, the initial response even from conservative Christians that I saw was a lot of people going, this is not okay.

Even on Truth Social.

I have a Truth Social account so that I can actually go in and look at the comments and things.

Even a lot of the comments I was seeing on this Truth Social Post were saying, Mr. President, like, this is not a good look.

Like, please take this down.

I know you didn't mean anything by it, but people were not super happy.

So what can we take away from this?

In this passage of scripture, not even the king's own mother was safe from accountability.

Not even the king's own mother was going to be allowed to get away with idolatry.

You probably see where I'm going with this.

King Asa's mother here, the Queen, created a graven image in order to worship another God.

Meanwhile, who we have chosen to be our leader of this country has created an image depicting himself as God.

This goes so much deeper than, well, it was just a bad joke or, well, he went a little too far this time, y'.

All.

We have let this man get away with so much up until this point that spits in the face of Jesus on a regular basis.

This.

If this is not a line that we can draw on the sand and go, oh, just like Asa removed his own mother from her station, we need to take action here.

So what does that actually look like right now?

Something that we can be doing is making sure we're having conversations with people in our circle who claim the name of Christ and yet are still supporting Trump.

There has been a lot of excuses that I have seen made.

There has been a lot of, well, he took responsibility.

He said that he posted it and he took responsibility.

He did not take responsibility.

His explanation was saying, oh, I thought it was an image of me as a doctor, which, again, I will put it up here so you can.

You can see for yourself.

Demanding accountability of the president starts with demanding accountability from our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are to hold each other accountable.

We are to speak the truth in love.

And the truth is that the leader of our country blatantly committed idolatry, blatantly committed blasphemy, created an image of himself as Christ, as God, as the one that we worship, as our Savior, as the one who deserves our devotion.

I know it's incredibly overwhelming to look at a situation like this and go, so, what, do we just, like, kick him out of office now?

What do we do?

Let's start with just having some tough conversations with the people who are in our circle, holding people accountable, sending it to the pastors that you know are still supporting Trump, sending it to your grandma, your mother, your friends, the people that you know who are still holding on to this, who are still wanting to hold on to the version of this man who claimed that he was going to do things for Christ, he was going to do things the Christian way, restore Christian values.

It's not just his actions not lining up with what he said he was going to do.

That's the problem right now.

This right here again, creating an image of himself.

Whether he created it himself or he reposted an image someone else made and sent to him, it does not matter.

He posted publicly on his own platform that he controls, and he has confirmed personally that he is the one who posted this, an image of himself as Christ.

So I want to challenge you today.

If you are someone who's still really struggling with, okay, but I thought the right thing to do was to support him.

I thought he was the one that Christians are supporting.

I thought he was chosen by God to be a leader.

This is a point for you to kind of sit with yourself, open yourself up to the Holy Spirit and go, okay, God, where could I possibly be wrong here?

What should my heart posture be on this?

Because I used to be a Trump supporter.

I voted for him twice.

I was hardcore maga.

The first time.

Definitely wasn't loving everything he was doing the second time, unfortunately, by the third time, I was like, there's absolutely no way in hell I'm voting for this man.

But I absolutely know what it's like to be stuck in that circle of.

But we are conservative Christians.

This is how we vote.

This is what we do.

This is what we've been told is the way that God would want us to vote.

Church that I used to go to literally said from the stage, well, I'm not telling you who to vote for, but there's only one party that protects this issue and this issue.

So if you are still struggling with wanting to support Trump, with thinking that's the Christian thing to do, this is a reflection point.

This is a point where you can sit, break out your journal, talk to God, ask him to show you where your heart needs to be, what your beliefs need to be.

And if you are someone who has either jumped off this train a while ago or has not been on the mega train ever in your life, congrats, by the way, if that's you, this is the time to keep having conversations, to keep opening the door with friends, with family members, with colleagues, with fellow churchgoers, with pastors.

We need to hold each other accountable.

Absolutely no one should be above accountability.

And here in First Kings, back in the Old Testament, we see the king holding his own mother accountable, removing his own mother from her station.

We need to keep that same energy with the people in our lives.

We need to demand that same accountability from the people in our lives.

Ultimately, we need to demand that accountability from the people that we have in office, especially those who claim the name of Christ.

That is the biggest thing here.

Donald Trump ran his platform on restoring Christian values, on doing Christian things.

So this is not.

This is not someone who is unfamiliar with the name of Jesus.

He's unfamiliar with the teachings of Jesus.

He's unfamiliar with scripture, but he is not unfamiliar with using the name of Jesus in order to claim and hold on to power.

And we need to demand accountability for that.

But for today, let's start small.

Examine in your own heart, in your own life, where might your beliefs need to change on this, where might your heart need to let go of some things that you have grabbed so tightly onto because the Christian culture told you that's what you need to be doing in order to be a good Christian, in order to be right, this is what you should be doing.

We need to demand accountability from the people around us.

We need to have conversations.

This does not have to mean confrontation.

This truly can mean having a conversation with someone you know supports Trump and going, hey, did you see this?

What are your thoughts on that and not letting it go.

It can be gentle, it can be non confrontational, but something needs to start happening.

Absolutely no one should be above accountability.

Also, if you hear a bird yelling, one of my chickens is currently laying an egg.

So sorry about that.

That is all I have for you today.

Thank you for spending some time with me this morning.

I hope this was something that kind of got you thinking or at least encouraged you to kind of get out there and start having these conversations or at least start doing some internal work to figure out.

Ok, spirit, where do you want me to go on this particular issue?

All of these videos are uploaded as podcast episodes.

You can find that at the link in my bio.

I would love to have you subscribe, leave a review that's really helpful in helping me reach more people and I will see you in the next one.

Bye.