Love and Worship – David

As stated yesterday, both David and Solomon started out with so much promise. They both loved and worshipped God, but both of them did not end the same way.  Yesterday we looked at Solomon and why he failed at the end of his life and today we will look at David and how he stood till the end.

David in 2 Samuel 6 had won battles and conquered Jerusalem and now thought he had to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Israel, so he gathered a delegation and went to Abinadab’s  house, brought out the Ark and put it on a cart.  God gave Israel specific instructions on how to carry the Ark and in Numbers 4:15 He clearly told them that anyone one who touches the Holy things will die.

Uzzah, David and the entire congregation that went for the Ark, in their zeal broke a lot of the laws in relation to the Ark.  Zeal in the Kingdom of God is good, but without knowledge and/or wisdom, is deadly. It is like giving a fully loaded gun to a toddler or a fool. You can never be careless with the things of God, and neither is favour a reason to take God or His laws for granted.

When Uzzah died, David was afraid and angry so he took the Ark to the house of Obed –Edom, the Gittite.   Here’s the thing I find interesting, Obed-Edom, was not a Jew and definitely not a Levite.  He was an alien, a Gittite. Yet David decided to give the Ark that just killed a covenant child to an alien that had no right what so ever to the ark.

David knew what the ark did to the people of Dagon when the ark was sent there, so why take the ark to an alien when he knew he was practically sentencing the man to death?  Yet that was exactly what he did, he took the ark to Obed-Edom’s house.

David was a man who had many faults, he was a smart man who knew how to use his head and calculate his steps.  He sent a death trap to an alien living in Israel, he killed a man and took his wife, when he conducted a census that God was angry about, he told God ‘you punish me, because with you I can negotiate, with an angel, there would be no room for negotiation’.  Yet despite everything he was a man that God loved and favoured ridiculously.

When he sinned with Bathsheba and killed Uriah, God told him in 2 Sam 12:7-10 that He anointed him and gave him everything and if it wasn’t enough He would have given him more.  This was a man that already had over four wives and a kingdom with concubines and never lost a battle! And God said I would have given you more if only you had asked.  What did David do that was so great that God loved him so much?

As much as David had failures, I believe David had amazing love and reverence for God.  Because of this love that he had for God, Michal, Saul’s daughter became barren  when she dared question David's worship lifestyle.  When God took away his son, after so much fasting and prayer, any other man would have questioned God, but David got up, took a bath, put oils and perfume on his body and went to God's house to worship.  His reason, God is God and who is he to question Him.

If there is one thing that moves the hand of God, it is faith. Faith in God will cause Him to do things He never planned to do. It was faith in God that shut the lion’s mouth and kept the three Hebrew boys alive.  And this Sunday I learnt something else, it's faith that God looks on to move.  And you can never have faith in someone you don’t trust (love is trusting).

David never touched Saul, not because he didn’t have the opportunity, God gave him chance over and over again to kill Saul but he never touched Saul, because he knew that what is God's is holy, and he couldn’t touch.  Remember Numbers 4:15? Don’t touch God's holy things.  God anointed Saul.

David was a man who lived in obedience and total reliance on God.  Even when he went wrong he didn’t give excuses, he accepted his mistakes and surrendered himself to God's decision.  In my opinion Abraham and David were similar.  They both trusted God unconditionally.

If as Christians we can stand this battle of the end time that we are in, then we need to learn from these people in the bible, who learnt to love and depend on God unconditionally.  As I stated yesterday, God's love is great, I do want it more than anything, in fact am nothing without it, but this love will not keep me from falling if I don’t recognise what this love means to me and how I can hold on to it to stand.

Tomorrow we will conclude our series on love with how we can stand, don’t miss it!

 Written by Aba Dadson




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