Another warm day.  Yesterday the official temperature for our area was 88 – it was 101 in Carla’s garden.

She was supposed to go to work earlier today, but the shop is having difficulties keeping people, so her time was changed to cover more of the shift. 

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.

The man who replaced Saul, the man that God chose, the man God considered after HIS OWN heart, was David.

Even though David was the chosen leader to replace Saul, David refused to injure Saul even though he had many opportunities; even though Saul tried to kill David, David remained loyal.

David loved the Lord and took his duty to God seriously.  From a young age he grew close to God.  God knew him, God protected him and used Him to strengthen His people, to lead them in the way that God wanted them led.

Yet, David coveted another man’s wife.  While the man was on the battle field David brought her into his bedroom and they conceived a child.  And then as the supreme commander of his army ordered that her husband be placed in a vulnerable spot in the battle so he would be killed.

And David was punished because of his sin:

2 Samuel 12:8-14 And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.

⁹ Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

¹⁰ Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

¹¹ Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.

¹² For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.

¹³ And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.

God knew the heart of David.  God knew how much David loved Him, but He also knew that David would falter; NOT that He wanted David to stumble, He just knew he would.

David’s sins were ‘major’ not only did he covet another’s wife, he committed adultery with her – then when her husband was too loyal to his troops to visit her early in her pregnancy (thus making him believe the he was the father) he refused to go home and be comfortable while his men suffered in the field.

David then ordered him killed. 

David slayed many in battle and that was considered war and required to win – but here he deliberately had an innocent man, a man who had strong values, placed in an area that his death was certain.

David sins caused great pain to him and his family as God punished him for those sins.

But even with all that David had done, God forgave David.  David confessed his sin and God put the sin away and would not hold it against him.  To be sure the results of his sin would leave lasting scars, but his salvation was secure.

Very few people in this world commit sins of the terrible nature that David committed – and fewer still are those that commit them are people who have accepted Christ as their Savior.

Yet, people feel that they cannot come to God, their lives have been full of sin.  They feel unworthy and believe they must change for God to love and forgive them.

Part of their problem is they don’t realize that we are all unworthy of forgiveness from God – that we can never make ourselves worthy and we cannot become holy on our own – only God can do that, only God can help change lives and use them for His Kingdom. 

As long as we are breathing and have a mind that can discern, listening to the Holy Spirit telling us that what we have done is sin, we can confess our sins and He WILL forgive us.

God wants His people to be Holy, and free from sin – but He also knows how difficult it is to keep from sinning – even subtle things that we do can be a sin, what we say, how we say it, can become sins.

We need to strive NOT to sin, but we also must understand that God doesn’t automatically write us off when we do sin. 

The consequences of the sin, here on earth, may be terrible for us, but that is the result of what we have done, and even though forgiven we still must face the penalties of society.

God knew us from before we grew in our mother’s womb.  He knows what we will do and when.  He tries to warn us in various ways of sinful behavior, but in the end, He allows us to make our own decisions.  When they are wrong, He still loves us and is willing to accept us back into His Fold.

Acts 13:21-23  And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years.

²² And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave their testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.

²³ Of this man's seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus:

When we feel that we have so grieved God that He will never forgive us; when we listen to others that are so devastated by their sins they believe God will never forgive them – we have the example of David.

David, a man that was pure of heart, a man after God’s own heart, who sinned and suffered the consequences but God still forgave Him.

As long as the Holy Spirit is working in a person’s life, striving to bring them to God, there is hope, no matter the sin.

Later, Art :-)