Monday 31 October, 2016

1 Comment/in /by

The philistines are preparing to go to war against Israel. Both sides are mobilising their forces. As David and his men are under the protection of Achish the Philistine and have been his servants for over a year, they must line up with him to attack Israel. But David’s reputation as a warrior goes before him and the philistine commanders demand that he be sent home. They are smart and know better than to allow a man with divided loyalties to go into battle with them. I don’t know from this story what David’s intentions were. He was caught between love for God and Israel, and fear of King Saul.
As Christians we are to be wholly devoted to God and to our brothers and sisters in Christ. This story shows that we can’t serve the world and rely on its rulers for our security or we, like David, will find ourselves compromising our Christian values. Likewise, there are those who profess Christian morality but are not truly walking with Jesus, in the important battles they are likely to let us down.
Dear Lord please help me to be only for you all the time. Not to hide from you when the going gets tough and not to compromise on anything you have written in the bible even when our culture disagrees with your commands for us. You are a loving God who knows what is best. The battle is yours- eternal victor.

Written by Dimity Milne

1 (reply)
  1. Andrew says:

    Dimity
    Thanks. As I reflect on this passage it looks like an example of the grace of God in my life as in David’s. When we may have done something really stupid but God intervened.
    David was an impressive man he had protected his father’s sheep from bears and lions, he was the anointed by the profet Samuel as the next King of Isreal, he killed Goliath the Phillestine, then had multiple military victories (because of the Lords blessing). He was the warrior who killed 10,000s and they danced about it. Admittedly at this time David was being unfairly pursued by Saul so he took refuge in Phillestine territory and befriended the King Achish.
    But in hindsight it would have looked very poor on his CV for David (the Annointed King of Israel to have killed 10,000 Israelites for Achish. Despite David’s righteous indignation (I can’t relate to that – who can question my loyalty? ). Not only does God save David from doing something really stupid, God knows that in the next chapter David has an even bigger issue to save his wives children and the whole community at Jesreel.
    Thank you Lord that you even use Phillestines to prevent me from doing really stupid things!

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