Journal Acts 13 (all references are from the ESV; changes in punctuation are mine)
Scripture: “And when (God) had removed him (Saul), he raised up David to their King (of whom (God) testified and said, “I have found in David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will).” Acts 13:22
“For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption…” Acts 13:36-37a
Observation: I am always taken with the testimony of God that David was a man after God’s heart, who will do all God’s will, and the testimony that David served God’s purpose in his generation.
When I read the historical story of David, it is just a little difficult to reconcile God’s testimony and the historical testimony together. God’s testimony must predominate, but why and what am I missing?
Analysis: Was David lily white?
By any measure anybody currently employs in this day and age, David was anything but lily white. In fact, with what David actually did and if he said, “But I love God with all my heart and soul”, we would scoff and ridicule him mercilessly.
If that would be the case, why does God (through the Scriptures) say differently?
This is a difficult precept to walk through, and I am tiptoeing on my way to splitting hairs. The best precept I can hang my hat upon is “persevering to the End.”
Most folks would look at success as being attaining some kind of proficiency and then adding to that success progressively over a period of time until some sort of plateau is reached, or the game is called. For instance, if I want maturity, then I increase in things adding to becoming mature until attained.
But that is not my experience. I don’t experience a smooth flow upward to the target. I experience an up and down life. If I graph it, it is like a saw-tooth line. Imagining the graph, I would like to think I have a 45 degree climb from conversion. Reality is probably less than 1 degree over my lifetime—and still a saw-tooth line.
My experience could lead to a sense of either I don’t care about my failures OR successes in the Faith, and I fall back on “once saved, always saved” or I press into the “high calling in Christ Jesus” and persevere to the End of my days.
I am beginning to believe that David and the Psalms were given to Believers for understanding the day-by-day dynamics that we go through; using David as that model and helping fools like me to keep plodding/stumbling forth in the Faith.
The point that I am seeing is that, however bumbling David was, he NEVER lost sight of his love of the Most High. How he did that, I am not sure, because he really went off the rails at times, but David PURSUED God all of his days.
Additionally, I can be sure that Sovereign God never lost sight of His love for David, from before David was born. God, the Father, pursued David.
I can see the principle “once saved, always saved”, but only in the context of God’s Sovereignty—and I can presume on His Goodness in error. My obligation to God, not as a matter of works but as a matter of devotion, is to be in pursuit of Him all my days, that at my End, I may be found to have “served the purpose of God in my generation.”
To have faith in His Grace, but not to assume on His Grace: I think that is the sum of David’s life.
Prayer: Father, there are some things that are just plain hard to explain. Today, I think this is one. But I thought it necessary to write out so that some day in the future I will be able to review this—hopefully after growing a bit more.
“To have faith in Your Grace but not to assume on Your Grace”: This may have gotten close…
Amen
Ricky Two Shoes