Tag: A chapter a day

“I will praise God’s name with singing, and I will honor him with thanksgiving. For this will please the LORD more than sacrificing cattle, more than presenting a bull with its horns and hooves”.

The sacrifices in the Old Testament were never about appeasing an angry God. If they had been, verses like this one would never have been penned.

The sacrifices in the Old Testament were more a foreshadowing of the Great Sacrifice that God himself would make for the sins of his people.

“All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him.”

He could easily sweep us all away. What is man, that God is mindful of him anyway?

“But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her, and since he was stronger than she was, he raped her. Then suddenly Amnon’s love turned to hate, and he hated her even more than he had loved her. ‘Get out of here!’, he snarled at her.”

The Bible is a very real book. It does not try to gloss over the very real scourges of sin and death.
On the contrary, its pages painfully convey both a harsh reality and its glorious solution.

Then David confessed to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”
Nathan replied, “Yes, but the LORD has forgiven you.

The LORD is ready to forgive if we but ask Him. With a broken heart, David effectively asks for forgiveness when he says, “I have sinned against the LORD.” The prophet’s response is immediate.

“When the period of mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her to the palace, and she became one of his wives. Then she gave birth to a son. But the LORD was displeased with what David had done.”

King David slept with the wife of one of his soldiers and then arranged for him to be killed on the battlefield. When you are a king, you can do a lot to cover your tracks. But you can’t hide from the Lord of hosts.

“Who is your servant, that you should show such kindness to a dead dog like me?”

This was Mephibosheth’s reaction.

David the king kept his promise to Jonathan. He gave Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth land that had belonged to King Saul. He also gave Mephibosheth a permanent seat at the king’s table.

“So the LORD made David victorious wherever he went.”

David conquered all of the enemy kingdoms surrounding Israel, and forced them to pay tribute. As gruesome and as violent as his military campaigns were, the LORD was with him and blessed him.

“For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime!”

God is Love. His anger is aroused against those who act defiantly toward him. He is angry because he knows that he who would defy the LORD is his own worst enemy.

“Do you deal with everyone this way, O Sovereign LORD?”

God really is a good God. David is overwhelmed, as we should be.

“And everyone who came by that spot stopped and stood still when they saw Asahel lying there.”

Asahel, one of David’s fiercest warriors, was struck down by Abner, the commander of Saul’s army, now the army of Ishboseth.

The scriptures of the Old Testament are real. The stories are true —even when they end tragically.