1 Kings 15:14 opens with a bit of negativity. The writer informs us that the “high places were not taken away. High places were places outside of the temple in Jerusalem where sacrificial worship took place. It could be worship of idols, or in some cases worship of the Lord. The seriousness of the sin, of course, depended upon which deity they worshipped, but the Lord had made it clear that the worship of him by sacrifice should take place in the one place he had chosen for his name to dwell. This was the place where the Aaronic priesthood served.
The difficulty for an interpreter is the next statement that, regardless of the failure to remove these alternate centres of worship, Asa’s heart was entirely dedicated to the true God. This circumstance leads us to wonder if there was an obstacle to the removal of these places. One possibility might be that they were located in portions of Judah that were controlled by foreign rulers. Another possibility is that Asa was too weak to carry out a program that he would otherwise have wished to put into effect.
There is another matter that appears to be among the things that were right in the sight of the Lord. That matter is bringing the sacred gifts of precious metals, both his and his father's. Yet before the chapter is out, these same gifts will be removed from the temple and given over into the hand of Ben-hadad, king of Syria.
14 But the high places were not taken away. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true to the LORD all his days.