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Saul
vs. David
Speaker M.Noorhoff
Will I Bring Myself Up to This Level?
gc perfecting holiness in the fear of Godh (2 Corinthians 7:1).
Therefore, having these promises ch I claim God's promises for my life and look to their fulfillment, and rightly so, but that shows only the human perspective on them. God's perspective is that through His promises I will come to recognize His claim of ownership on me. For example, do I realize that my gbody is the temple of the Holy Spirit,h or am I condoning some habit in my body which clearly could not withstand the light of God on it? (1 Corinthians 6:19). God formed His Son in me through sanctification, setting me apart from sin and making me holy in His sight (see Galatians 4:19). But I must begin to transform my natural life into spiritual life by obedience to Him. God instructs us even in the smallest details of life. And when He brings you conviction of sin, do not gconfer with flesh and blood,h but cleanse yourself from it at once (Galatians 1:16). Keep yourself cleansed in your daily walk.
I must cleanse myself from all filthiness in my flesh and my spirit until both are in harmony with the nature of God. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I mentally rebellious and defiant? Am I allowing the mind of Christ to be formed in me? (see Philippians 2:5). Christ never spoke of His right to Himself, but always maintained an inner vigilance to submit His spirit continually to His Father. I also have the responsibility to keep my spirit in agreement with His Spirit. And when I do, Jesus gradually lifts me up to the level where He lived\a level of perfect submission to His Father's will\where I pay no attention to anything else. Am I perfecting this kind of holiness in the fear of God? Is God having His way with me, and are people beginning to see God in my life more and more?
Be serious in your commitment to God and gladly leave everything else alone. Literally put God first in your life.
Where is the joy? Where is the freedom? Where is the blessing? Where is the peace? Where is the Glory?
How many years has the church (yes, that means you and I) lived under the law and not the love.
How many years have we felt the heaviness of lifes yoke? Where is the yoke that Christ promised?
That is the Glory. The Glory, the kabod, is the weighty presence of God. It is God with us, It is Emmanuel. It is the Spirit of God, the same spirit that is God, Jesus was the arc of Glory, He was the temple and now that temple is us.
Proud,
Angry, jealous,
insecure, vengeful, unforgiving, a man of immediate need, dark, gloomy,
image
conscious, driven by the perceptions of others
All
these things are
brought on by fear
For
many years the
Israelites had no King. God alone was the only king of Israel Instead
whenever
Israel was in trouble or went off course God would raise up a judge to
lead
them protect them and set them straight. But the Israelites were tired
of this
they wanted something more permanent and less as you can guess,
judging. They
looked around them and wanted to be like all the other kingdoms. They
wanted a
standing army they wanted to see and feel physical safe. They were
willing to
essentially dethrone the greatest most powerful and loving king for a
cheap
facsimile. Oh
But
when they said,
"Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to
the LORD. And the LORD told him: "Listen
to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have
rejected, but
they have rejected me as their king. As
they have done from the day I brought them up out of
But
the people refused
to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over
us. Then we will be like all the other
nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our
battles."
When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the
LORD. The LORD answered, "Listen to
them and give them a king." Then Samuel said to the men of
So
Samuel went out and
began the search. Finally he found Saul a tall handsome fellow that the
people
would surely like, and he seemed humble. So God gave of reluctant okay
and Saul
was anointed as King and at first he was a good King leading the people
and
humble at the same time. But Saul had a fatal flaw, insecurity, fear.
And as he
started to feel like king he started to believe he was king and He
started to
forget who the real king was. He started to make the kingdom his.
He
forgot as
"Praise
be to the
name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.
He changes times and seasons; he sets up
kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to
the
discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in
darkness,
and light dwells with him.
He
started top forget
about God and he started doing things his way. Saul only turned to God
or used
the ark when things were not working his way. His way came first and if
that
didnft work he could always fall back on God
Well
all was going well
until Goliath came along and then Saulfs fear was in the open for all
to see.
There was no man in
After
Goliath fell you
would think Saul would be please but no his fear now turned into the
form of
jealousy burned all the stronger.
They
say that power
corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely
With
power comes the
potential of great fear When you stand on the peak you forget to look
up and
you only see where you may fall. Many who obtain power or a position of
leadership change and this is what happened to Saul when he stopped
looking up
he felt the fear of losing the power. In the world this is a driving
force
behind so many executives, politicians, supposed world leaders,
companies and
so also the driving force behind what goes wrong
In
a similar manner
when we take to much control over our lives and our churches when we
put man/
or woman at the top and forget that God is the true King. When they are
run buy
our wills and committees instead of God then things go wrong fear
creeps in the
system is corrupted we corrupt our churches we corrupt our lives
because we
look do not look to the true king. We lose the servants heart and we
are given
over to fear we fear losing control. We fear giving everything over to
God. Do
we not do the same thing in our lives and churches.
And
in the end Saul
lost it all and fell on his own sword. A life that was driven by fear
and
jealousy ended the way it was lived It is a metaphor that is sad. He
destroyed
Himself, He killed Himself
Saul
said to his
armor-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through, or these
uncircumcised
fellows will come and run me through and abuse me." But his
armor-bearer
was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell
on it.
Well
Ifll tell you
right from the get go he wasnft perfect and I will say that in fact he
wasnft a
good king. And when he acted like a king he became no better than Saul
himself.
So David was not special. But he became special when he became nothing
when he
became a servant king serving the true King of Israel, calling of God
for help
and comfort. Being fully and totally emotionally in contact with God.
He didnft
just pray standard prayers He didnft just sing standard song but he
fully
opened up all his emotions with his Great King. And he turned to God
when he
felt distressed and he turned to God in joy and he turned to God when
he was
lonely. He pleaded he asked he relied of the staff of God his true
comforter
Who do I identify with in this story, Saul or David?
We can set ourselves up as kings and queens of our own lives or we can allow God to be the ruler. We can try to do it our way and ultimately fail and be driven into a place of fear, jealousy, bitterness, depression, a place where we may even want to fall on our own swords or we can ask for Gods help. Ask that his presence be known in our lives ask that he takes control
We did not use it to ask God for help while Saul was King
Who do I identify with, Saul or David?
Let us stop playing king or queen in our own lives setting up false kingdom bound for failures. Let us ask upon God to be king of of lives king of our churches and find joy complete.
Let us pray
But in the end, the LORD
was with the
little band of disciples. Saul's manipulative actions only furthered
their
cause. His persecution of them forced them to disperse, and as they did
they
spread The Story even further (Acts 8:4). Saul's rage intensified,
almost
consuming him, and he headed off to
Can God revive the
emotions of controlling
personalities who have destroyed their own lives and the lives of
others? What
emotions do you think Saul of Tarsus felt as he re-read the ancient
story of
Saul and saw it re-enacted in his own life and, instead of his going
mad and
dying, both Christ and Stephen died for him? Do you think Paul had
emotions?
Could he love like a Jonathan? Read his letters: "The love of Christ
constrains me...whatever things were gain to me, those things I have
counted as
a loss for the sake of Christ." Could Paul sing with joy like the women
of
That Thou, my God shouldst die for me?
Who do I identify with in this story, Saul or David?