Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Faith Brings Redemption Not Perfection In This Life - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in 1 Chronicles 7:2,

"During the reign of David, the descendants of Tola listed as fighting men in their genealogy numbered 22,600."

In this chapter we have several counts of "fighting men", military troops from clans or families. Here we have the number of troops from the sons of Tola. We read in verse 5 that the fighting men from the tribe of Issachar numbered 87,000. The descendants of the sons of Bela included 22,034 fighting men. You get the idea.

It would appear to me the various counts of fighting men in this chapter come from the counts David made in 2 Samuel 24. The account of David in that chapter is a fascinating one. In it we read the Lord himself "incited" David to take a census to find how many fighting men he had.

While on the surface this count may seem innocent enough - for David to count his fighting men - however it expressed a lack of faith in the Lord as his strength, relying, instead, upon his troop number. It is the sort of inventory you do prior to striking out against your enemy. You don't want to take on more than you are capable of beating. However, when David counted his troop strength, he was defining his capability in the size of his army, not the size of God's awesome power. The effort communicated David's lack of faith in the Lord at that time.

And, the Lord incited him to do it! I take that to mean that David was struggling with his faith at that time, engendering God's anger, who brought it to a head by having David act on his lack of faith. The result was devastating for Israel.

Although David was "conscience-stricken" afterward, 2 Samuel 24:10, seventy thousand Israelites died from a plague the Lord brought on Israel because of it. Not a military defeat, but a plague! The troop strength was useless to protect Israel.

David was a man of faith, a man after God's own heart. Paul quotes God saying of him, "I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do." Acts 13:22. What I learn from this is that people of faith are not made perfect in this life. Faith redeems us and sets in motion God's wonderful spiritual-growth effort in each of our lives. However, we will never see perfection in this life. That comes in the next. Yes, our sins are forgiven, and we now hold a righteous standing in God's sight - but that does not preclude imperfections in us that will rise from time to time. (See 1 John 2:1.) As Paul explains in Romans 6, we are no longer slaves to our sinful nature, but we will still see those occasions where we disappoint the Lord, ourselves and others from time to time. Our job is to get up after such an occasion, dust ourselves off, and get back in the saddle to live our lives worthy of the Lord.

While faith redeems us; it does not make us perfect in this life. Just ask David.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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