Daily Manna – March 5, 2016
Topic: Efficiency is knowing the ways of God
Reading: 1Chronicles 22
Scripture: And David said, Solomon my son is young and tender, and the house that is to be builded for the Lord must be exceeding magnificent, of fame and glory throughout all countries: I will therefore now make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death. (1Chron 22:5)
Note: David had grown old and nearing death after several decades of major wars. Through the great hand of God, he had come out of all his wars triumphant. One risky and notable battle, the fight against Goliath when he was a mere teenager, and the greatest battle of his life when he had to flee like a fugitive from the combined war machine of king Saul and his military apparatchiks, that took twenty-one near hit attempts at David, were enough proof of the providential hand of God upon the anointed young man, who inspite of his own failings, weaknesses and special vulnerability to the opposite sex, stood out indisputably as the greatest king ever to have ruled Israel, including the divided kingdoms beginning from the reign of Rehoboam.
What made the difference in David’s life compared to the other kings was not a futile claim to infallibility but his unfailing recognition of the presence of God on his life and the working power of the Holy Spirit, without which, he acknowledged that he was nothing (Psa 51:11). This unique characteristic of David to acknowledge that he was a man who was conceived and born in iniquity, requiring the grace of God to intervene in his life, separated him out as a man who knew the ways of God, a man after God’s own heart.
David desirously wanted to build a temple for God to demonstrate how good God had been to him. God knew his heart and the massive preparations he had made in terms of the required, skilled manpower, the financial means with liquid money of gold worth $2.9 billion, silver worth $1.9 billion, infinite quantities of materials in brass, iron, stones, cedar timber, specific methods in construction using the materials enumerated, the size of the building with specific measurements to ensure its grandeur nature and the last but most importantly, God, who vetoed him out from starting the actual construction because David had shed too much blood in wars.
Food for thought: Yahweh doesn’t require the blood of men, either through war, violence or suicide death to appease His sense of justice. The shed blood of Jesus Christ is the only acceptable sacrifice that satisfied the requirements of God for the redemption of humanity.
Declaration: Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. (Heb 9:12)
© Author: Rev Fred Aboe
