Character of David Part 3: Passionate

I think Passion is one of the characteristics that Christians ride from one side of the pendulum swing to the other. Some Christians would say that Passion leads to life that is uncontrolled and therefore should be avoided and on the other side of that coin we see that other would say that true Christianity can only be obtained through unbridled Passion, that we live according to that passion. I believe both views are correct. We need to have a passion for our Lord, but it needs to be in a controlled manner. Not allowing our feelings to control us, but allowing the Lord to guide us through His Spirit.
David gives a great example of passion under control.
First, let us look at the end of verse 20, " And he came to the circle of the camp while the army was going out in battle array shouting the war cry." I want to draw your attention to this passage not as an example of passion, but as an example of fake or false passion. They are faking it, they are going out daily to do this ancient trash talking and yet their hearts not in it. My football coach used to call this going through the motions. When we would be practicing and just running the plays with no passion and just did it because we needed to, my coach would make us take and knee and then rant at us about us just going through the motions, not putting any heart into it. At the time I was clueless and never really understood what he meant, but now I see exactly what he was talking about. How many times have I gone to church just because I know that is the "Christian" thing to do. How many times I have I gone to youth group or to an event and just did what I was supposed to do, but had no passion doing it. This is what the Hebrew Army is doing they are just going out there and just shouting but do not have any heart. When you have no passion it is made known when a trail comes, we see in verse 24 that when the army sees Goliath they turned and fled because they were afraid. But David does not respond in such a way. In verse 26 David response to Goliath's taunts, with a question about reward for whom will remove this reproach from Israel. David becomes enraged at this uncircumcised Philistine (vs26), we see his passion rise to the surface. David is not just passionate bout his reward which is important, but he is passionate about the fact this enemy of God is talking smack and denouncing the Living God. These are two important things to point out, that David is not focused on just the reward or just the injustice, but he is passionate about both. We know his mind is on both because in verse 30 we see that David continues to ask about the reward. The passion for the injustice being done is not diminished we see in verses 45-47 David's response to Goliath's taunts and he still seek to right the wrong done by Goliath. So how does this translate into our lives. In 1 Peter 1:3-5 Peter writes:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

Also Paul write in Ephesians1:9-12 :

"He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that it, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the council of His will, to the end that we who were first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory."

This is our reward, in Matthew 6 Jesus tells us to store up our treasures in heaven. It is okay to want to seek heavenly treasure this can help focus our passion. Some would say to serve with out seeking a reward, I would say serve knowing your reward. David knew his reward for fighting God's enemy, he sought it out. Sometimes we forget that in every fight, in every battle there are to two things we fight for, there is principal and then there is the reward. The reward for victory in David's case is personal wealth, his Father's house living tax free in Israel and being the son-in-law to the King (vs. 25). We too have multiple rewards, we have the ones mention in the above passages, but there are other rewards we receive, sometimes God will bless through physical means, but one reward we always receive from these battles is growth. This is the prize we should seek, not only does it have heavenly value, it has earthly value as well. I doubt your boss or teachers would be upset with you for being a better person. They will not despair as you become a better student/employee. For you married folks your spouse will never come back to you and say "I wish you were more lazy" or "you know really should be less responsible". Sometimes though there can be a tendency to focus too much on the reward we forget on what grounds we are fighting. We must except both. Paul encourages Timothy to fight the good fight:

"Fight the good fight of faith; take hold if the eternal life to which you were called, and made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." 1Timothy 6:12

And Paul says of himself:

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith." 2 Timothy 4:7

It is a goal just to fight hard ad again in verse 8 of 1 Timothy 8 Paul again reminds us of the reward.

"in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, from the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only me, but also all who have loved His appearing"
2 Timothy 4:8

There is no separating the two. We must have both the reward and principal in mind when we fight. But why? Why do we need both? We need both to keep us balanced, there are times when fellow believers try to hinder us from our battle. They tell us we are trying to get attention or we are wrong in our theology. Others can be jealous that God is working in your life and accuse you of legalism or of being too free. There are so many ways we as Christians stab each other in the "front" that it is easy to be discouraged in our fight and the same thing happens to David in verses 28-29 we see Davids brother give him a hard time and tries to discourage him. But David again looks to his reward as in verse 30 he continues to ask others around him and we see in verses 31 through 37 that David does not forget his righteous anger. He recalls the taunts of Goliath and this drives him to push the king into letting him fight and at the end of verse 37 Saul grants his petition. We need both sides of this passion. Passion for the reward and passion for righteousness. As we deal with those around us who would discourage us or distract from the battle God has put before us, we lean on the passion God has given us, which will carry us through the battle.

Watch your mouth!!!

"Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear" Ephesians 4:29

It is so easy to think or to even "say" that you will be good at watching the words that proceed from our lips, but the actual practice of this is rather a daunting task. I found myself in a sticky situation last Tuesday night where I let loose the destructive powers of my tongue. I had allowed myself to be overcome by my weariness and let my guard down and said some things to a beloved sister in the Lord, that were not up lifting nor did they give grace to those who heard them. And on top of that I did it in front of a group of our peers and her husband. It was nothing too outrageous, but nonetheless it did not need to shared in front of others or even at all. As God was instructing me in certain areas of my life, I spoke out of frustration and fear, yet I needed to trust in the Lord in these areas that were mentioned in our conversation. The next night her husband came over to me and called me on it. I was totally convicted and God had already been convicting me on my speech with the verse posted above and with Colossians 4:6 earlier in the day. God was showing me that I cannot let my guard down even when I am with other believers, that our enemy looks for such an opening to bring division. Yes I was weary, but that is no excuse. We must keep a constant watch in our walks. The watchman must not become less vigilant as the night drags on, nor can we drop our guard against the flesh. One of my Youth Pastors used to say "you have a spiritual tiger and a fleshy tiger that are constantly at war" he then would ask,"Which wins? The one you feed the most." We grow weary as we live out our lives here on earth, we need to make sure we take care of ourselves spiritually as much as we do physically. This is a great way to stay vigilant. If we stay aware of our spiritual need we will have less slip ups and more lift ups. So keep a vigilant watch my fellow warriors and may God Bless you this week.

"Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how to respond to each person" Colossians 4:6

Thnx Babe!!!

If you didn't notice I have a new header up as of last night and I have my lovely talented wife to thank for that. Honey, thank you for making the header for me, it is not what I had in mind, but you always seem to have a way of out doing me and here you have done it once again. Thank you for the time you put in to this and I am really blessed by your work, thank you.

Character of David Part 2: Obedience

So the next aspect of David's Character that we are going to look at is Obedience. This is a key fundamental part of being a Warrior. A soldier is no good to his commander if he cannot follow simple or complex orders. Being a soldier in God's Army is no different. If we do not obey the commands we are given then the plans of our Commander must be corrected for our lack of obedience and this is to our disadvantage.

Obedience is easy when we like the orders we are given. If we are told to go on short leave to the Bahamas or to go on an exciting special ops mission that will save the world, I believe most of us would jump at the chance. We as human beings are always ready to do the work that WE want God to send us on, yet how often are we ready to go on a mission He wants us to go on? How willing would you be to go on a mission to wash toilets or to help in the nursery during Sunday Morning Service? How willing are you to become uncomfortable for the furthering of His Kingdom? There are all kinds of missions God can choose to send us on, why He chooses the missions that He does we do not know, but God ALWAYS has a plan. Take David for example in 1 Samuel 17:17-22, here we see David is obedient to God, through obedience to his father, and he was sent on a mission that would change his life forever. His mission wasn't critical to the nation of Israel or so he would have thought at the time. Since when does being the Cheese Boy bring any praise and honor, let alone a pleasant time. I can just imagine his brothers watching their brother come strolling up, waiting for news of their father and seeing what their father sent for them, only taking heed of their brother when he starts talking "self-righteously" about this giant. (1 Samuel 17:28-29) David knowing his brothers, probably saw their attitudes coming, yet he was still obedient, David saw the unpleasantness of the task and yet he obeyed. Unpleasantness can come in many forms, such as boredom, fear and the thoughts and words of others. These mind sets distract us from the mission God has put before us. David could have easily made excuses about going to the battle-line. He had the sheep to look after, he could say it was his calling to be a shepherd all his life and he had no need to deliver cheese or he could have claimed fear of travel and of war, he could have been afraid to face his brothers knowing that they may be harsh with him. Yet if David was not obedient he never would have become a Giant slayer, Israel could have suffered a great defeat or another would rise up and win the day for Israel. How many times have we made excuses out of fear or laziness not to be obedient? We do not know the plans of Him who sent us. We can see the Hand of God work here in David's life and yet we forget that God work's in our lives the same way today. We must always be obedient,

"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a Bond-servant and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point o death, even death on a cross." Philippians 2:5-8.

If Christ can be obedient to the point of crucifixion, we can be obedient to the point of cleaning toilets. There should be nothing we would say no to God about. There is a great blessing that comes from being obedient, look at David, even though this jump starts his "career", he still will not be king for at least another 10 years probably longer and a lot of those years he will be running and hiding from King Saul. But this was God's Will for his life, this is how David gets his training to be king. Do not think that obedience means instant gratification, but rather as it is part of God's Plan for your life. So embrace whatever God sends your way and I guarantee he will use you mightily as He used David.

When you encounter trials while you are in obedience, hang on to the fact that He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it. (Philippians 1:6). God Bless you faithful Warrior.

Character of David Part 1 : Origins of a Hero

As I promised, I am writing the first part of this Character Study of David. As we begin make sure to read 1Sam 17. I am going to reference it, but for context you should read it ahead of time. Before we dive straight in to the Origins of David we first need a bit of context our story 1Sam17:1-11 basically states that the armies of Israel and of the Philistines line up to battle as was custom in their time and were talking smack back and forth. Similar to two different teams coming out before a game to talk some smack to try and intimidate one another. The difference here is that they were playing for keeps and what better way to intimidate then to slaughter your enemy's champion in front of the entire army. So Goliath comes out and offers the challenge to one on one combat, knowing he has the advantage in the fight. That is the background, now to get to the characters. David enters our story in verse 12 and from the following verses we learn some things about our warrior, we see that he has 3 older brothers in the army, he is the youngest and he is the son of Jesse of Bethlehem . First we see that he is the son of Jesse the Bethlehem, (vs. 12). His ancestry goes back to the House of Judah. If we take a look in Genesis we see in chapter 37 that Judah sold his brother to slavers and in chapter 38 he sleeps with his daughter-in-law after he refuses to give her his son in marriage as was required. Not exactly the greatest of role models and David knew his history well as it was the Law. How rough to have the patriarch of your house be Judah. Next we see that David has at least 3 older brothers and then in verse 14 we find that he is in fact the youngest of eight. Not only his David the youngest which makes him the spoiled brat by default(all older siblings will agree with me), but his 3 eldest brothers were already warriors they were in the army fighting along with the king. These men were experienced in war and knew how it was fought, these guys were pros. Now you may wander why we are looking at the background of our warrior in the making. I wanted to stop and take a look at what is required to be selected by God to be His Warrior. What are some of the prerequisites to be a warrior for God. Well we know that lineage is not it, just look at David's ancestry and see the people in it and we find 2 prostitutes as well as a Moabitess (Matthew 1:3-6, Ruth 4:18-22). According to this he had no special bloodline, no special heritage to look up. David should be nobody important according to his family tree, he was not related to the king in any way and should rise to nothing more than the least is his fathers house. Which brings me to my next point, he was the youngest in his house, not only that he had three older more experienced brothers. As the youngest he gets over looked, especially of eight sons, so much so that he gets the worst job, shepherding(1 Sam 16:6-11). That is the equivalent of being the one to pick up the dog poop or cleaning out the kitty litter box, the later was chore I had as a young man, no fun. Nothing is ever expected of you, your whole life things are done for you whether as in spoiling or since there were seven others before you we can just speed things up a bit and let the more experienced ones do it. Now this is the point where you start to wonder what does this have to do with me, I will tell you. By all rights David had no business trying to be a Warrior and it was true, but he became one anyway. Why? Because God saw something the rest of the world did not see and that is the point. There are others around you and I that have a better past, their families have been believers for years and their Dads and Grandfathers were pastors and great men of God. There are people who are more experience than we are at the art of fighting spiritual battles, they have been Christians longer than you and fighting in the battle longer than we have and they have the experience to do the work more efficiently than we can. But are these people called? God took a boy that by all thoughts should be a nobody and anointed him king because he saw the heart (1 Sam 16:6-13). God sees your heart, He has called you and I as His children, His Warriors. Our past matters not, our lineage matters not, our experience matters not, how we were raised matters not, what matters is the state of our heart. Do we willing follow Him? Do we love Him with our hearts, minds, souls and strengths? Do we constantly seek to do His Will? These are the things He looks for, do not be dragged down by who you are not, but be encouraged and know who you are. You are a child of the King, you are a Warrior Prince/Princess. You have been called to a higher calling, now walk in it! Be encouraged, God looks to your heart and sees beyond your sin and wants to help you rise above the struggles of this life and teach you to fight. So take up the banner of your King and charge into battle, look not to the past but to the future that God has laid out for you. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

Character of a Warrior

In then next few days I am going to be taking a look at one of my favorite and probably most inspirational Bible characters, David. Now, I could spend the next several months and lots of posts on David's character and who he was and so on, but the Scripture that stands out to me the most and gives me goosebumps every time I read it is 1 Samuel 17. If you do not know this passage off the top of your head, it is the story of David and Goliath. I know this is a story that most people know well, christian and non-christian alike, but I am going to go about it piece by piece and look at the key points (in my opinion) that reveal David's character and see what brought him to the place where he could charge after Goliath with such reckless abandon. David is a Warrior, but he was not always such and I believe this is the story of David becoming the Warrior, after enduring the training of his youth as a shepherd and it comes to fruition in this chapter. This will be a 4 to 5 post series as this a blog and no one wants to read a five pages of stuff in one sitting :P Please add your comments and or your insights as I post these things as the Holy Spirit reveals them to you and may we all be blessed.

Welcome!!!

Well here we go on the beginning of my blogging adventure. I pray that this would be a fruitful venture. I would just like to thank you for stopping by and reading my stuff. The basic premise for this blog is to help me keep my Warrior's Edge, hence the name of the blog. The bottom line is that as a Christian I am a Warrior in God's Army. I came into His service by his choosing and I need to stay at the top of my game and it is my prayer that I can do that by sharing things with you all that God has put on my heart. And through the training He puts me through daily via His Word or through various things in my life, my hope is that you would be encouraged too. And with that I would like to share with you what He has shown me today. As I was driving home from work today
I was listening to my "new"Skillet CD. I finally broke down and bought the "Awake" album. And when "Awake and Alive" came on I was trying to focus on the words and the Lord spoke to me from this verse:
I’m at war with the world cause I
Ain’t never gonna sell my soul
I’ve already made up my mind
No matter what I can’t be bought or sold

When my faith is getting weak
And I feel like giving in
You breathe into me again

It just reminded me again of this fight we are constantly fighting as Christians against our enemy the Devil, who is constantly looking for someone to devour (1 Peter5:8). And if we do not take the time to allow the Lord to fill us and breath new life into us, we will just falter and sputter out. So rise up my fellow warriors, allow the Lord to fill you to over flowing today and continue to fight the good fight of Faith.

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:2 (NASB)