Skip to main content

Another Hero's Understanding


David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.” (Romans 4:7-8)
          Paul continues with the Jewish heroes. Yesterday, we considered faith and works with Abraham as our example. Today, the hero with Paul’s attention is David, the greatest king of Israel. Now, if you asked David for which of his acts he most wanted to be remembered, I’ll bet he would say either “designing the temple and collecting the building materials,” or “bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem,” or perhaps “defeating Goliath.” If you were to ask most people today, they would probably say either “his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband,” or “defeating Goliath.”
          David understood what it meant to have sins forgiven. He committed a few that we consider “big” sins. In addition to the debacle with Bathsheba, he also didn’t show proper respect to God in his treatment of the Ark of the Covenant the first time he tried to bring it to Jerusalem. That resulted in a death. Then there was the time that he decided to review his strength by counting his soldiers instead of trusting God, in direct violation of God’s command.
           David knew that he had messed up. The only way he could be right with God was if God forgave him, and God did. That doesn’t mean there weren’t consequences for the things David did. People died because of David’s sins. David could have been bitter about God’s punishments, but he rejoiced that his sins were forgiven, that his relationship with God could be restore not because he beat Goliath, or brought the ark to Jerusalem, or designed and collected the materials for the temple, but because the Lord forgives. That was what made him blessed.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...