Tuesday, November 20, 2007

8.22.07 "Rise From Grace"

Picture this: You do something that no one else could or wanted to do. Upon doing it, you land a white collar job which leads to endless fame and fortune among everyone in your entire country. Then the person that helps you get there turns on you and wants to kill you which leads to you running for your life and virtually disappearing off the face of the earth. To make things worse, you have the chance to kill that person two different times aren’t able to because you have a conscience.

Welcome to David’s life.

David killed Goliath and was put in charge of Israel’s army by King Saul. He was praised by Saul, loved by his people and arguably had the best life in the entire Old Testament. Just look at 1 Samuel 18:14, “In everything he did he had great success, because the LORD was with him.”

Saul grew jealous of David because he didn’t have what David had. But the real issue was that Saul didn’t seek God like David did. Saul tried to kill David but failed four different times. David escaped and fled from city to city to hide from the king. Eventually, David had two chances to kill King Saul but didn’t because David loved and respected the king since he was the Lord’s anointed. David didn’t necessarily serve Saul the king, but served God, the King. He knew God would deliver him.

Fast forward to 2007.

Our culture screams for us to seek out selfish pleasures and outdo your neighbor in success and do it for the sole sake of instant gratification. But I challenge you to take another approach—David’s approach.

1. Pursue God (Matthew 6:33)
2. Avoid jealousy (Proverbs 14:30, or do a case study on King Saul)
3. Wait for God’s timing (Habakkuk 2:3)

Do these and surely it will be said of you, “In everything he did he had great success, because the Lord was with him.”

-NW

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