David has a pang of conscience about living in a house while
the ark remains in a tent and has an idea to build a house for the Lord. Nathan, a prophet, agrees that this makes
perfect sense and says, “Go for it!”
Later, however, the Lord spoke to Nathan about the matter. While it was
an admirable thing for David to consider this work of building the Lord’s
house, it was not for David to do this thing.
Instead, the Lord was going to build David’s house. He would make the house of David the kingly
line of the nation and David’s son would take the throne and he would be the
one to build the house of the Lord. At
the time, David didn’t have the son who would be that king. Sometimes we have good and noble ideas about
what to do for the Lord and yet they are not His plans. Not every idea, however holy it might be, fits
with the Lord’s will. I have certainly
experienced that in my life and am likely to experience it again. We need to pray and we need to have people
around us who pray and who listen and then we need to listen to them when they
have heard for us.
Jesus just fed four thousand people and the Pharisees come
and ask for a sign from heaven to test him.
Sighing deeply might be the under-reaction of all time. Follow that up with the disciples thinking
when Jesus mentioned leaven that He was somehow indicating that He knew they
hadn’t brought bread with them and you can see why God might think we’re a
little thick and beyond redemption. It
is certainly proof that without the Holy Spirit we haven’t got a chance to know
anything of Him at all. After Jesus
rehearses the feeding miracles with them and they are able to answer the
questions of how much they had and how much was taken up at the end He asks a
final question, “Do you not yet understand?”
I would bet the real answer to that was, “Nope, not a clue.”
Paul’s mission in Corinth was a great success. It started slowly but he found someone to
hook up with for the work even though Silas and Timothy had stayed behind for a
time in Macedonia. He used his
occupation as tent maker to find persons of peace, Priscilla and Aquila, and
they became partners with him in the mission.
Paul always worked with others, never alone, wherever he went. We need to take that into consideration in
our mission as well. His arguing with
the Jews of Corinth seemed not to bear fruit so he announced he would go to the
Gentiles but where did he land? The
house of Titius Justus, right next to the synagogue. Who was one of the early converts? The leader of the synagogue, Crispus. The Lord gave him a word there was much work
to be done in the city so he remained eighteen months. We always need to be listening for our orders
like Paul did.
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