Many of us are currently enduring a crisis. Yes, crisis changes the course of our lives. But what we often forget is that the changes can open doors to a life better than what would have been if the crisis had not happened.
No one is immune who compromises God’s standard. Not even a king…like David. Witness the monarch’s misery as the sword of consequences fell on David and his family. As we watch it happen, let’s take heed!
The term worry is derived from the old German word wurgen, which means "to choke." Somehow, by extension, the word came to denote "mental strangulation," and, finally, to describe the condition of being harassed with anxiety.
David refused to repent about his sin until a man of incredible courage and bold honesty stood eyeball-to-eyeball with David and exposed the truth of his deeds and deception. Let's honour that man—the prophet Nathan.
For Bounds, prayer was as natural as breathing. He said, “Prayer should not be regarded as a duty which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.”
Those of us looking at David's life may use different words to say the same thing about his fatal experience with Bathsheba. We might call it the most distressing episode of David's life; some will see it as an exceedingly dark day; others will lament how the mighty have fallen.
To summarize Scripture, the issue is not that possessions are wrong. It’s our attitude toward them. It is the LOVE of money and things that Scripture condemns. Anything we trust in besides God is an idol.
Looking at 2 Samuel 7, we found David enjoying a brief time of relief from the demands of his role as king…an interlude of quietness. Now we find him in a similar context. He was thinking back over his past.
Some experiences in the Christian life are a mystery. Nothing is necessarily wrong or missing in your walk with the Lord, but for some unexplainable reason He places a definite restraint on you. His denial can lead to disillusionment or be used as a cause for continued growth in obedience. David experienced that mysterious “no” at a crucial juncture in his life. Let's see how he handled it.
Each one of us faces our own kinds of temptations that threaten to lure us away from God's best for us. Chuck Swindoll describes sure ways to resist these lures.
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