Saul’s insecurities were actually readily apparent from the
beginning weren’t they? He had already
been anointed by Samuel as the first king when the ceremony of choosing the
king by lots was undertaken and yet when his name was called he was hiding
among the baggage. Now, David receives
acclaim from the people as they return from the defeat of Goliath and the
Philistines and, unsurprisingly, Saul is jealous. What once calmed him, the playing of the lyre
by David, now becomes an occasion to attempt to kill him when we are told yet
once again that a harmful spirit from the Lord came upon Saul. David evades the attacks and yet the next
thing we are told is not that David was then afraid of Saul, but that, “Saul
was afraid of David because the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul.” David’s continued success and that Saul’s own
daughter, Michal, loved David as his wife further caused Saul fear and
awe. If the Lord were not with David he
would never have survived to become king.
Has God ever told you something about your life that isn’t coming to
pass right away? If so, take heart, He
will fulfill what He has purposed for you.
As with David, the people hear about Jesus’ exploits, the
miracles He began to work and come out in droves in praise of Him, seeking
Him. Already He is forced to go out to a
desolate place to be apart and alone with the Father and even then the
disciples come looking for Him to bring Him back. This time alone in prayer allows Him to stay
grounded in the work He has been given to do, to keep moving forward. All over Galilee they go, from town to town,
synagogue to synagogue, healing people and casting out demons. Can you imagine being one of His disciples
during these heady days of triumph? When
the leper comes on the road every convention and religious prohibition is in
play. The leper should have kept his
distance, announcing his leprosy so that Jewish travelers could keep away from
the religious and disease contamination but he runs up to Jesus, risking Jesus’
disapprobation, and instead, Jesus does something he need not have done, he
reaches out his hand and touches him.
There was no need, he could have healed at a word but the touch would
have been true balm for the soul who had not been touched so long as he had
this disease. Jesus does more than heal
the body.
The Jewish believers from Jerusalem fled after the stoning
of Stephen resulted in persecution of the church. Luke tells us that they spoke to no one about
Jesus except other Jews. You would
assume that they thought preaching the Gospel required the predicate of the Old
Testament and without it might be incomprehensible, which is ironic since today
many Christians believe that the Old Testament is incomprehensible or at least
dispensable if you have the Gospel. Some
people from outside Jerusalem, people from Cyprus and Cyrene, decided to tell
the Greeks about Jesus and, shockingly, they believed! Are they learning, finally, that belief is
itself a work of the Holy Spirit? The
Jerusalem party sends out Barnabas, who had originally vouched for Paul there,
to Antioch to investigate this phenomenon and lo and behold, it was true so he
brought Paul off the bench to come and lead.
Barnabas, unlike Saul, chose to lift up the people God was lifting up
rather than lifting up himself, he wasn’t jealous over someone else’s
success. The more we lift up others, the
more we are lifted up.
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