HOW SHOULD THE LORD DEAL WITH ME?

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to faithhopegodlove@aol.com In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He has rewarded me.

For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not done evil by turning from my God.

All His laws are before me; I have not turned away from His decrees.

I have been blameless before Him and have kept myself from sin.

The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in His sight.

2 Samuel 22:21-25

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

How often do believers fall into the trap of becoming spiritually arrogant…acting as if they are so righteous that they are beyond fault?

Unfortunately, it happens much more than it should. For while being transformed by the Holy Spirit and God’s word, a person can get so caught up in the changes that are taking place that they lose one of the most important qualities expected of a Christian…humility. And a loss of humility is just one of the first steps toward becoming spiritually arrogant…when one adopts an attitude that they are so spiritually connected to God that they are no longer at fault.

We get a sense that David has gotten a little carried away with himself through this next section of his song of praise. For as we look at the scripture we see him make the following statements:

“I have not done evil by turning from my God.”

“I have not turned away from His decrees.”

“I have been blameless before Him.”

“I have kept myself from sin.”

Really David?

What about that little matter with the bathing beauty Bathsheba…the married woman that you couldn’t control your lust for and so you abused your authority as king and ordered her brought to you while her husband was away so you could sleep with her.

Seems to me that God had said, “You shall not commit adultery” and “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” . (Exodus 20:14, 17) And so you did turn from His decrees and you hadn’t kept yourself from sin.

And then there was this matter of getting Bathsheba pregnant. Yeah…that was a real sticky matter that you needed to get out of.

So you came up with a devious plan. You would bring Uriah back from the battlefield and try and convince him to sleep with his wife so you could pin the child on him. And when Uriah refused to take you up on that offer because he felt obligated to return to the fight with his fellow soldiers, you got him drunk and once again hoped that this would soften himself up enough to sleep with Bathsheba. But again, Uriah stayed loyal to his fellow fighting men and didn’t sleep with her.

It was then that you decided to just get rid of him. That would be the easy way to fix the sin-initiated situation you got yourself into.

So you sent him back into battle with a note for Joab…a note that instructed him to place Uriah on the frontlines where he would be most exposed to enemy attack. You hoped this would lead to him being killed and then you could blame the pregnancy on him anyways. After all, dead men tell no tales…right? And your plan worked to perfection as Uriah died on the battlefield. You didn’t kill him yourself David but you might as well have because your scheming made you an accessory to his death.

And I believe God said, “You shall not murder”. (Exodus 20:13) So were you really “blameless before Him” David? Had you really “not done evil” by turning from God?

The truth of the matter is that David was wrong in saying nearly everything in this passage except for this:

“The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He has rewarded me…The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in His sight.”

For although David thought he had gotten away with his sinful actions before his people, he found out that he hadn’t gotten away with them before God who sent David consternation and consequence through a message given to the prophet Nathan…a message that would lead to the death of the child Bathsheba gave birth to following their adulterous tryst…as well as Absalom attempting to overthrow his father before dying at the hands of Joab. (2 Samuel 12:1-19, 18:14)

The Lord dealt with David according you his righteousness…according to his cleanness in His sight. And those dealings definitely were impacted by David’s sinful behavior.

Friends, we need to learn an important lesson from David’s words. For we can never say that we are blameless or sin-free before the Lord. We can’t possibly ever say that.

But what we can say is that the Lord will deal with us according to our righteousness…according to the cleanness (or lack thereof) we display as we live our lives before Him.

So as we continue to move through our time of Lent…a time when we are to sit and reflect on where we stand in our spiritual walk with the Lord, assessing how we can be more like Jesus while we appreciate all He was and all He did for us…let us ask ourselves this question:

How should the Lord deal with me in regard to my righteousness?

If we’re honest with ourselves when we answer that question, we should be taken to a place of repentance…a place where humility lives and spiritual arrogance dies away…a place where the Lord always expects us to be. Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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