Sunday 12 Oct 2014

October 12: 2 Samuel 6:9-11

Key Verse: 2 Samuel 6:11
The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blessed him and his entire household.

Devotion:
When David tried to bring the Ark of the Lord back to Jerusalem they had a bit of an accident on the way when Uzzah reached out to steady the Ark and immediately died. David was angry because God allowed Uzzah to die even though he was just trying to help; but when God lays down a law, it has to be kept. David was then afraid to move the Ark any more than he had to in case anyone else died; what would happen to him with the Ark being close to him? So David moved the Ark to the house of Obed-Edom…

Whilst the Ark was there, everyone in the house was blessed. When word got back to David that this is what was happening, he started to plan how he could bring the Ark back to Jerusalem. Was David being overly cautious? Was he being sensible?

Being close to God means that we are going to be blessed by Him. There is no disputing that. But when we do come close to God we also have to be aware that we still will do things wrong from time to time. Whether it is us being tempted to do something that he does not want us to do or whether we overstep the line and have to pay for what we have done wrong, God is just and continues to uphold His word. If He has said that we must not do something we should not expect to be able to do it just because we are really close to Him! If anything we should be more afraid of doing that when we are closest to Him!

I’m sure that God would love to bless us all the time but when we continue to live for the world then we are going against Him and should not expect the same blessing as when we work with and for Him. When things go wrong around us we should seek God’s direction to see if it is us walking in the wrong direction or God trying to guide us in a new direction. Don’t leave God out of the decision making because He alone knows our best path forward; we need to trust Him and expect Him to show us the right way.

Points to Ponder:
Do you ask God for direction?

Do you try telling God the direction?