Friday, June 2, 2017

Fri.’s Devo - Establishing God’s Kingdom

Read: 2 Samuel 19:11-20:13; John 21:1-25; Psalm 120:1-7; Proverbs 16:16-17
David was waiting for Judah to ask him to come back and be their king. They sent word for him to come back and alerted everyone of his return. All Judah went out to meet him. Along with those people was the very guy who cursed him as he left. He sent his fifteen sons and twenty servants to help David and his men cross over the Jordan. He begged forgiveness from David and David was gracious to him.
Ziba had lied about Mephibosheth and told David that he had deflected to the side of Absalom when he was lame and couldn’t go with David. Mephibosheth was able to clear his name and tell David the truth.
An argument rose up about why Judah made all the decisions about David since he was suppose to be everyone’s king. Things got out of hand and a man from Benjamin named Sheba stood up and declared that they had no part in David and took a huge following with him. David appointed his cousin, Amasa to gather the men of Judah to go after Sheba. It took Amasa longer than David thought it should so he told Joab to take his servants and defeat Sheba. Joab met up with Amasa, who he saw as his rival and killed him.
I can’t help but relate this great upheaval and confusion to how it is right now trying to bring God’s kingdom down to earth. Everything is changing in the earth and in the spiritual climate. Some are welcoming what God is doing and some of his own people are resisting it. David waited for the priests to get the people to want him to come back to his place and God is waiting for the spiritual leaders to lead the people to want this new change.
In John, Jesus appears from time to time with his disciples. Today, he comes to them while they are fishing and not catching anything. He told them to change the side of the boat they were fishing from. That small thing changed everything but it wasn’t the place they put their nets that made the difference it was Jesus telling them to do it and what they would find. He was trying to show them the difference of doing things routinely in their own strength or doing things according to his word and in his strength. Our lives would be much easier if we called on the Lord for help and relied on his strength first.
Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him and gave him the same request each time. He wanted Peter to see that to love him means to love his people. Then he told Peter the same thing he said to him when he called him: “Follow me.” In Matthew 4:19 Jesus had found Peter and Andrew fishing and said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” This was the same scene and Jesus was telling them that it was now time to become a fisher of men. I don’t think they fished again.

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