The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Week 4

Daily Scripture Readings

Monday          II Samuel 11:6-13

Tuesday         II Samuel 11:14-21

Wednesday   II Samuel 11:22-27

Thursday       Exodus 20:13-14

Friday             Psalm 51

Saturday        II Samuel 12:1-7a

Opening Prayer

Lord Jesus, when I make bad decisions, use those moments to call me to repentance.     AMEN

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

The sins that tend to shock us most are the ones committed by those who know better.

If anyone were immune to moral failure, you’d think it would be the boy-turned-king who watched a giant fall at his feet. The one whom God miraculously spared from death and handed a kingdom. The one who wrote dozens of songs about his devotion to God, and God’s devotion to him. The one whom God specifically chose for his loyalty and obedience (1 Samuel 13:14; Psalm 89:20). But even great faith doesn’t inoculate us against temptation.

David’s sin, much like many of ours, began as a slow slide. “In the Spring when kings march out to war,” David was home instead (2 Samuel 11:1). Apparently, he felt his kingdom was secure enough that his right-hand military man, Joab, could take care of business on his own. Maybe he suffered from vocational boredom or spiritual apathy. Maybe he had a mid-life crisis, or he was just feeling lazy and lax. That’s when temptation came. Then justification. Then trespass.

David’s sin left a wake of consequences that affected not only him, but Uriah, Bathsheba, an innocent baby boy, and an entire nation. But even with all that collateral damage, the real weight of David’s story wasn’t in his failure but in his restoration. God confronted, then offered forgiveness to, the man who undeniably “knew better.”

But there’s even more good news woven through this story. One sin—even a whole season of bad choices—doesn’t have to define our lives. Yes, David sinned. He sinned big. But long after David’s body turned to dust, God still measured other kings’ successes or failures by David’s heart (1 Kings 14:7-8; 2 Kings 14:3, 16:2), blessed generations for his sake (2 Kings 8:19, 19:34, 20:6), and made good on His promise to bring the Messiah through his descendants (Psalm 89:3-4; Ezekiel 37:25; Luke 1:69).

Jessie Minassian