Worshipper, Warrior, and King!

1 Samuel 13:14 -But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee.

David gets a bad rap amongst Christians today. He’s actually a paradox to the Christian community being used as an excuse for a flesh filled life and the lie that they are alright with God when they are not. I would like to take a few minutes to look at David with God’s perspective.

First of all, Samuel told Saul that God was replacing him as king with one whose heart was after His own. At the time Samuel didn’t know who this person was, but he was told that this person had a heart for God.

When God was ready to anoint His new king, Samuel was sent to David’s home, but David was in the field watching the sheep. David did more than watch the sheep out there. David learned to worship God, to seek His face, to trust and obey Him. And because of that, David got God’s attention.

I want to point out that in David’s time, that was unusual. When people had a desire to worship, they went to the temple. When they had a need, a sin issue, or celebration, they went to the temple; but David created a temple, an atmosphere where he could meet God in the fields, or where ever he was at. This was a New Testament order brought into the Old Testament because his heart was to worship God unhindered and unstructured.

When Saul was appointed king over Israel it was at the request of the people, but when David was appointed king, it was at the request of God. What a huge difference in the beginning of the assignment on his life. We could say that God approved of Saul but He specifically chose David to be His king. Chose and HIs being the operative words!

After Samuel anointed the shepherd, David, to be king over Israel, David went back to the fields. And as he was in the fields he continued to worship God, continued to open his heart to the will of God, continued to develop before the Presence of God; because when he was anointed king, the Spirit of God rested on him from that day forward.

When the Spirit of God is mentioned about Saul, it is said that the Spirit came upon Saul, but with David, the Spirit of God remained. Already there is a notable difference.

Now to get to the other point I wanted to make: as David continued on in life with God he wrote some psalms, killed Goliath, became a mighty warrior, turned the destitute into the mighty men, and united a kingdom, all while giving God the glory!

As he settled into his kingdom David did a few things that were just plain wrong: he slept with Bathsheba and then he had her husband killed to cover it up. And God continued to love him and to bless him with favor; even made a covenant with him to give him an everlasting kingdom. And this is where people get confused.

They think that David was this terrible sinner that God just loved on and used in spite of himself because of the plans for his life! Wrong!

Let’s remember that God called David a man after His own heart. I don’t think people really understand the word sinner. A sinner is someone who sins, who is separated by their sin from God. They aren’t sinners because they sin, they sin because they are sinners. When David slept with Bathsheba, he sinned. But that didn’t make him a sinner who was separated from God. When he had Uriah, her husband killed, he sinned, but that didn’t separate him from God. It broke fellowship, it broke God’s heart, and had he continued, he may have ended up like Saul, but David’s heart was bent towards God and it was evident even then.

When David was called on the carpet for his sin, he didn’t blame Bathsheba for bathing on the wall, he didn’t blame the devil for setting him up, he fell before God and took the blame and cried out for forgiveness. (Psalm 51) Then he begged God to allow His spirit to continue to remain with him. In other words, he repented and meant it and God knew that He did. These are not the actions of a sinner, but of one whose heart is towards God!

My pastor explained this so beautifully once that I never forgot it. He said something like this: “When a man lies and admits his lie and repents of his lie, he just lied. But when a man lies, cover his lies, and continue to lie until he lies about everything he becomes a liar.” I share that to say, there is no continuous reporting in the life of David that he continued to sleep with other men wives having them killed off. David repented of his sin and moved his face towards God.

He is even called ungodly. To be ungodly is to deny God or disobey God. An ungodly person doesn’t have a heart after God. If he did, God would be admitting that His own heat is ungodly. That’s ridiculous! David acted ungodly, yet again, he repented from the act of ungodliness or in this case-the act of disobedience.

I will admit that what David did was wrong on so many levels. This is why I said he is a paradox. He loved God so much, had a very close and personal relationship with God and yet he sinned. But remember that a sinner keeps on sinning with no or little regard to what God says about it.

Remember when Jesus hung on the cross? He asked God why had He forsaken Him? God forsook Jesus when Jesus became sin for us because He didn’t dwell with sin with Jesus HIs only begotten Son and He won’t dwell with sin in us. We must repent of it, be cleansed from it, and our relationship restored. Just like David, just like Jesus!! Although Jesus didn’t sin, but He carried ours and God forsook Him that we might be reconciled to Him.

He’s a paradox because people look for reasons to twist the things in the word of God for their own justification. That’s not having a heart towards God. That’s fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind then wanting to validate those desires by looking at what someone else did, just like Adam!

All of us can probably think of a time when we blew it, but the Word is clear that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. David understood that and lived accordingly; not to excuse his sin, but to be free from it.

So I am in agreement with God about David. He was a man after God’s own heart; a worshipper, a warrior, a king! He was God’s man, imperfect in his ways, but He belonged to God. That makes David as far removed from a sinner as those of us washed now in His Blood. Maybe you have struggled with the truth about who you are in Jesus! Struggle no more because if you have been washed in His Blood you are no longer a sinner but are accepted in the beloved! Wonderful Jesus!