I CAN CHANGE WHOM I PERMIT TO INFLUENCE OR CONTROL ME BY DETHRONING THE EVIL KINGS AND QUEENS IN MY LIFE.

This notion is one of the greatest powers you have in your life as an adult. You can choose whom you believe. You can choose whom you permit to influence or control you. As a friend of mine would say, “You can choose who you let in your head!” Don’t listen to people that try to keep you down, those who keep dragging you back to your past and think that their calling in life is to discourage you and remind you of all your former pains. This is the law of changing who influences and controls you. Consider the people that influence or control you, and think about who you permit to rule and reign in your thoughts and emotions.

This is a life changing truth. I ask you to trust the Biblical foundation of this truth, consider it carefully, and meditate on it with all of your heart. In 2 Chronicles 14:1-6, we find that after a long line of evil kings and queens, Asa took the throne. King Asa was a descendant of King David. Scripture tells us that Asa began to reign: “So Abijah (Asa’s father) slept with his fathers (died) . . . and Asa his son reigned in his stead” (2 Chronicles 14:1). Asa began to reign; he immediately began to take charge of the situation. King Asa was determined to make things better for the people, so when King Asa took the throne he made some significant changes. I will list some of those changes, and they will lead us to our law of changing who influences us.

  1. King Asa removed the altars of the strange gods (most of which his fore-fathers had brought in).
  2. King Asa dethroned the evil queen in his life.

2 Chronicles 15:16 records this: “And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron.” The important point of the text for us is found in the statement, “ . . . he removed her from being queen . . . ” This is the law of changing who you permit to influence you. Maachah was still Asa’s grandmother. He could not remove her biologically from his life, but he could remove her from the throne of influence and control. Considering the circumstances, I don’t question that he loved her. But, Asa had to choose whom he would permit to influence him and whom he would permit to influence the people entrusted to his care as king. Asa chose not to allow Maachah to rule in his life or in the lives of his people.

You cannot permit the person who hurt you, the person who took that which is precious from you, to reign and rule in your life. You. Must. Dethrone. Them. You alone have the power to do so. You can begin to reign in your own life; you can begin to take control of how you respond to the circumstances in your life! You can remove the evil kings and queens from their places of influence and control in your life. That does not mean you will no longer love them or care about them or want them to do well. You should want these things. That is not to say that you should remove them from your life completely. That might not be possible. However, you must determine not to grant them access to your thoughts and emotions. You may not be able to remove them from your past, and you may not be able to completely remove them from your mind, but you can remove them from ruling in your thoughts and emotions. If they are still hurting you with memories or words and deeds, then you must not permit them to rule your thoughts and emotions.

Find the strength that Asa had in dethroning the queen. Maachah was the queen that had introduced the false god Asherah (ash-ay-raw). This idol was the goddess of sexual perversion and was extremely evil. The root meaning of her name is horror. So, we make the application that Maachah brought sexual perversion into the environment of the people. Scripture tells us that when Asa began to reign he “ . . . cut down the groves” (2 Chronicles 14:3). This passage references Asa removing the goddess Asherah from Israel. The whole purpose of this book is to help you with the process of dethroning those who have hurt you and removing them from ruling in your thoughts and emotions, to help you end the horrors that the evil kings and queens have caused you, and to bequeath you with the principles and the confidence to cut down the groves of evil.

You can change who you permit to influence or control you!

Don Woodard, Restored: Living and Loving after Abuse (Greenville, SC: Ambassador International, 2018).

The writer of Hebrews said, “Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity.” Hebrews 6:1 Many small group Bible study groups struggle because they do not do this—they do not move on beyond the elementary teachings.

This week it is How To Be Saved. Next week it is How To Be Sure You Are Saved. The next is How To Tell Someone Else How To Be Saved. The next is How To Be Forgiven and so on.

We study David and Goliath and Daniel in the Lion’s Den and the Life of Joseph and so forth—all good stuff—but if you have been attending for a while, you will get to feeling like you have heard this before.

This is why I am excited about one of our newest Bible Studies—a Study of the Life of Good King Asa. Asa was one of the exceptional kings of Judah and lived during a time of exceptional ungodliness. The contrast of his life with his background of ungodliness provides a fresh opportunity to live in today’s ungodly world. This Series is called Godly Living in an Ungodly World.

Sessions include:

Godly Living
2 Chronicles 14.1 – 8

Godly Dependence
2 Chronicles 14.9 – 15

Godly Courage
2 Chronicles 15.1 – 9

Godly Worship
2 Chronicles 15.10 – 19   44

“The eyes of the Lord range throughout…”
2 Chronicles 16

Good King Jehoshaphat (Asa’s Son)
2 Chronicles 17.1 – 11; 2 Chronicles 20

These lessons are available on Amazon, as well as a part of my Good Questions Have Groups Talking Subscription Service. Like Netflix for Bible Lessons, one low subscription gives you access to all our lessons–thousands of them. For a medium-sized church, lessons are as little as $10 per teacher per year.

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