April 10, 2024 - 1 Chronicles 17-20

We don’t always get to do what we want to do even when we think an action will be good and moral.  Consider David:  “Now when David lived in his house, David said to Nathan the prophet, ‘Behold, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent’” (17:1).  The ark was kept in the tent of meeting; the temple had not yet been built.  Oh, what a monument to David if he could build the temple!  Now, I do believe that David was more concerned with God’s honor than his own legacy but, still, what would people say about David in succeeding generations!  That project, though, would be reserved for Solomon.  David would not have been emotionally devastated, though, because God promised to do something for him:  “I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.  And I will appoint a place for my people Israel . . . I declare to you that the Lord will build you a house.  When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever” (17:8-12).  Just this:  God has also done something for us!  “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy. . .” (Titus 3:4-5).

Approach, my soul, the mercy seat,

where Jesus answers pray’r;

there humbly fall before His feet,

for none can perish there.

O wondrous love, to bleed and die,

to bear the cross and shame,

that guilty sinners such as I,

might plead Thy gracious name.   –John Newton (1801)