Psalms 62:5 My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.
It never ceases to amaze me, the way the devil uses our offenses and our “offendedness” to divide and conquer marriages, relationships, churches — even entire nations!
Many of us are not careful enough about the things we say and more importantly, we get offended way too easily. As we were discussing this topic recently, a good friend gave this analogy and we loved it:
If you are holding a baby and his little arm swats you in the face, would you take offense to that? Of course not! We know the little guy didn’t intend to hurt us. We respond with “awwww” or laughter or something to that effect. But if it is a friend, a family member or a brother or sister in the church who offends us with a little swat of his words or actions, we are undone. We expect more from them! What hypocrisy! We become angry and we want to defend ourselves, fight back or leave forever.
Yeshua (Jesus) said NO! He said that even if someone despite-fully uses us, that means on purpose, that we are to respond in love! We as human beings are troubled and sinful. We are not perfect and we should never expect others to be, no matter what their positions are in the church. God is perfect and He is the one from whom our expectations should come — no man.
So let’s be quick to forgive, and slow to anger! Turn over all of those offenses to the Lord and allow Him to restore His perfect shalom over us!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]As we continue our study of the Mighty Men of David, another quality is worth pointing out — they were not procrastinators. Notice that these men decided to cross the Jordan river when it was at flood stage! They didn’t wait till the river receded, but rather, boldly crossed when it was the most dangerous!
As David grew in stature those who stood by him increased in number, devoting themselves to fight with him. Though it was a time of adversity for David, and a time of warfare, he found that there were many willing to join their lives to his; "...a brother is born for adversity"; and "there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother". Again we note that David's anointing and his character made him a friend to many...and many became his loyal friends.
A program by National Geographic gives a powerful illustration for us. In the great annual wildebeest migration in Serengeti National Park in Africa a giant herd, thousands of wildebeest, slowly move in groups across the plain. They are invariably followed by stalking lions. But the lions never attack the herd – they simply watch carefully for the stray wildebeest, either careless or seeking greener grass, who separates himself from the larger groups of animals. The isolated wildebeest will become the sudden prey of the lions who attack with lightening speed and ferocity.
50,000 soldiers from the tribe of Zebulun served in David’s army with UNDIVIDED (some translations: “not double-hearted”) hearts. Can you imagine a skilled army with this level of loyalty and devotion?
The mighty men that followed David were of one mind and heart to make him King. Their recognition of David’s anointing may have been the most significant quality of these Mighty Men. What was it in David that drew out this deep loyalty? I believe it was God’s Holy Spirit which David received when Samuel anointed him king.[1 Samuel 16:13].
In the 1970s when the Alaskan Pipeline was being constructed many Texans went to Alaska to work on the pipeline alongside the Eskimos, native Alaskans. However the Texans could only work a few hours in the frigid weather, while the Eskimos could easily work for hours on end.
The second great awakening took place around 1790 until the 1840s. This movement saw ‘circuit riders’, traveling preachers who spread the Gospel to the edges of the frontier, affecting the growing American populace. Camp meetings in rural areas outside the traditional church with the primary focus of soul winning, were like “brushfires” of the Holy Spirit, attracting people for miles.