Hello, my friends, and thank you for allowing me to take a few minutes of your time to talk about one of our core values, Relational. I love how the Bible uses story to illustrate the deep truths of God. So I’m going to share a story. It’s kind of an obscure story. It’s from 2nd Samuel. This is from the time of David. David had just come into his Kingdom. He’d just become King of Israel. The previous King Saul had been killed in battle, and his good friend Jonathan, Saul’s son, had also been killed in battle. And so King David is sitting in his palace one day and he’s talking with his advisors. And he says to his advisors, is there anyone left from the House of Saul that I can show kindness to because of my love for Jonathan? And so the advisors came back to him and said, yes, there’s one person left from the House of Saul. His name is Mephibosheth. He’s the son of Jonathan, and he is lame in both feet. Just as a side note, Mephibosheth had been dropped by his nurse when he was four years old and had both ankles broken, and so he’d been lame in his feet ever since. So David summons Mephibosheth to the palace, and Mephibosheth was a little scared because he was from the House of Saul, who had been David’s enemy.
I think Mephibosheth was fearful that David was going to punish him, perhaps kill him. But when Mephibosheth got to the palace, David said to him, “Do not fear because of my love for your father, Jonathan. I’m going to restore all the lands that your father owned back to you, and you’re going to live in my palace, and you’re going to eat from my table all the days of your life.” And Mephibosheth is just stunned because he had recognized he was on the wrong side of the fight, being Saul’s grandson, Jonathan’s son.
So that’s how the Lord, I think, uses that story. That’s how the Lord deals with us, because of His great love. He wipes away our debts, wipes away our sin. He invites us to come and live with him. Invites us, He adopts us into his family, gives us a new name, and we have the opportunity to dine at His table for eternity. And I think how this has import to Relational. I think that when we are secure in our relationship with the Lord, when we know that we’re loved, and we’re adopted, and we’re part of the family, we’re secure in that. And that is going to allow us to live out of that security, and to love and serve others in our life, just as the Lord has loved us.
So that’s my prayer for us this week, that we better receive the love that God has for us, then turn and share that love with those around us.
Have a great week. – Rich