SCRIPTURE: 1 Samuel 26
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
As surely as I valued your life today, so may the LORD value my life and deliver me from all trouble. [1 Samuel 26:24] David knows that everyone needs God’s mercy. As he values Saul’s life enough to spare him, he knows that God needs to value his own life enough to be spared. It is because the Lord values us as His much-loved though wayward children that He does show mercy, forgive us, and offer us new life.
There is a strong connection between how God treats us, and how we treat one another. Jesus teaches us to pray, Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. [Matthew 6:12] Wow, do you realize what this petition is saying? ‘Lord, treat me like I treat others!’ It’s the same petition of David, ‘Lord, value me like I valued Saul’. Now think about how you treat others: Are you patient with those who try your patience? Are you sympathetic to those who need sympathy, or merciful to those who need mercy? We need to think this petition through carefully: Lord, love me like I love others; be as patient with me as I am with others.’ Am I sure I want to pray this?
David demonstrates a wise and humble heart. Though he could have killed Saul, his respect for God and for God’s anointed (as one anointed himself) kept him from killing him. Its almost as if God is testing David to see what is in his heart, and what his actions show is that he is a God-conscious, wise, humble and sympathetic person. David’s concern for honouring God and God’s anointed shines out brightly of great character. He will make a great leader, a man after God’s own heart.
Every person that God puts into my life is one of His beloved children, therefore one of His anointed. God ‘delivers’ [1 Samuel 26:23] people into my life as a test, to see whether I will help or harm them. Like the parable of the Good Samaritan, the wounded man on the side of the road is a test that the religious people fail, but the despised Samaritan passed. This is the kind of love that God shows us, the kind of love He desires from us. Jesus makes it clear that failure to love in this way undermines our own experience of this love from God: For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. [Matthew 6:14-15]
I don’t know about you, but I need to reconsider this petition in the Lord’s prayer, and how I treat others.
PRAYER:
Lord, please be more merciful to me than I am to others. And please help me to be more merciful than I presently am!
LORD, as David models in this chapter, help me to resist the urge to respond in my humanness to seek revenge or rise up against those who appear to be against me or have wronged me. Forgive me for the times when I have taken matters into my own hands and have failed to show mercy and grace.
David’s obedience to You placed him under Your hand of protection. LORD, I too desire to be a servant leader who is obedient to You, whose heart is devoted to You and Your ways. Your will be done!
Appointed and annointed a king, but not yet. How does the Lord’s way come to pass? God promises, but it is in His timing. David was annointed as king, but that plan will happen in His timing and not David’s. David did not kill Saul and make the plan happen. Do good.
Saul does not acknowledges his errors but he does realize that David will triumph. He just goes home. And David went on his way.
God’s promises – how are they fulfilled? How am I an instrument of His peace? And my relationship to my fellow man, how often do I forgive? David certainly had the fruit of the Spirit in His actions with Saul. How often do I not insist upon my own way? Although I pray, God is First Today do I live that out in my daily actions? Lord, let my knowing = my doing = my loving which is only possible when I let You have Your way.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me, I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with Thy Spirit ’till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me.