King James Bible Study – [Mark 8:34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.]
Date: Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Chapters: II Samuel 20-21, Psalms 26,40
Message: Holding On To Integrity
Hello My Friend,
I was having one of my meltdowns where I am crying out to God, feeling as though I failed Him yet again because I trusted and put my faith in someone who ended up deceiving me. I do not know what feeling is worse, having known you failed God or finding out that when you failed God it was all for nothing. The funny thing, God knew that you would fail Him, He also knew that you were going to be deceived, and He is right there to pick up the pieces. And let me tell you, if we think that the chastening we get from God is hard, we do not want to be in the shoes of those who deceived His faithful, [Mark 9:41-42 For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. 42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.]
And as I was praying, and I love it when God points these thing out to me before I even ask Him to, God reminded me of something, [Job 2:3 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.]
[and still he holdeth fast his integrity,] [Integrity; The entire, unimpaired state of any thing, particularly of the mind; moral soundness or purity; uncorrupt; uprightness; honesty.] [Moral; Relating to the practice, manners or conduct in relation to each other, and with reference to right and wrong.] Being someone who holds on to their integrity does not mean that they never sin or think of themselves as never doing anything wrong. It means that when they do sin they are humble, admit it, and are repentant. David had his fair share of blunders, but not once did God question his integrity or his morals for that matter. As I was in tears this morning, God stopped me in my tracks of pleading with Him for forgiveness to bring me to this Psalm, which happened to be a part of today’s reading.
[Psalms 26:1-3,9-12 A Psalm of David. Judge me, O LORD; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the LORD; therefore I shall not slide. 2 Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart. 3 For thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth. 9 Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men: 10 In whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes. 11 But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity: redeem me, and be merciful unto me. 12 My foot standeth in an even place: in the congregations will I bless the LORD.]
[for I have walked in mine integrity:] That word integrity means something completely different to the world, just as do morals. The world’s thinking on integrity and morality comes down to what they think is good, not what God thinks, and as long as they are not cheating or killing anyone then they have nothing to worry about. I swear, the longer I walk with Jesus the more I understand that God’s thoughts are not my own, and I cannot lean on my own understanding, [Isaiah 55:8-11 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.]
Just think about that, with all of our failures as we walk with Christ, none of them return void, God will accomplish what He will please through even them, one way or another. When David committed his sin with Bathsheba, God knew very well what he would do, He could have intervened at any time, instead, Satan moved God against David by allowing him to lead him into that temptation and all the events that took place up until Absalom’s death. You see, God will use anything to accomplish His will, even our failures, by heritage, Absalom would have been the next king, and as you can see, it would not have been a good thing. Not to mention, it exposed the hearts of the ones whom have been deceiving David all along. David realizes it was time to get the kingdom back in order, and started making wise decisions again. No sooner than he gets back to the palace, a man named Sheba led all of Israel, except for the tribe of Judah, in a revolt against David returning as king.
[II Samuel 20:1-6 And there happened to be there a man of Belial, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite: and he blew a trumpet, and said, We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel. 2 So every man of Israel went up from after David, and followed Sheba the son of Bichri: but the men of Judah clave unto their king, from Jordan even to Jerusalem. 3 And David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in ward, and fed them, but went not in unto them. So they were shut up unto the day of their death, living in widowhood. 4 Then said the king to Amasa, Assemble me the men of Judah within three days, and be thou here present. 5 So Amasa went to assemble the men of Judah: but he tarried longer than the set time which he had appointed him. 6 And David said to Abishai, Now shall Sheba the son of Bichri do us more harm than did Absalom: take thou thy lord’s servants, and pursue after him, lest he get him fenced cities, and escape us.]
[do us more harm than did Absalom:] David knew their state would be worse than with Absalom, and took action right away. Belial, that old devil himself. As soon as we get things right with God and start moving in the right direction, here comes the devil placing more trials before us in an attempt to drag us back into sin. Remember, just as God will not suffer His true believers to be moved, He will not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able, [I Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.]
Something amazing happens when we get back in the will of God, He will answer our prayers. No sooner than God delivered Israel out of the hands of Sheba a famine comes, for three years David sought answers from God, finally he gets his answer, it was something that Saul did to the Gibeonites.
[II Samuel 21:1-6 Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. 2 And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.) 3 Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the LORD? 4 And the Gibeonites said unto him, We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house; neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel. And he said, What ye shall say, that will I do for you. 5 And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, 6 Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give them.]
[because he slew the Gibeonites.] Were are told of the injury which Saul had, long before this, done to the Gibeonites, which we had no account of in the history of his reign, which was contrary to the oath that Joshua and all Israel had given them not to slay them, but save them alive, [Joshua 9:15]. David knew all too well by experience that the trials he and his people were facing were the cause of some kind of sin. How relieved he must have been to discover that it was not his own sins this time. To make things right, David asked the Gibeonites what he could do to make things right, and what they wanted was seven of Saul’s sons hung.
[II Samuel 21:9-14 And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the LORD: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest. 10 And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. 11 And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. 12 And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabeshgilead, which had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa: 13 And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son; and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged. 14 And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin in Zelah, in the sepulchre of Kish his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God was intreated for the land.]
[And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth,] Rizpah stayed at the site as her two sons hung there, determined to keep prey from getting a hold of their bodies until the rain finally came, then they were taken down to receive a proper burial, along with Jonathan and Saul after all these years.
[And after that God was intreated for the land.] The affliction we face rarely happens that it is just one thing that we are afflicted with, it comes one after another, and sometimes several at the same time. And when that happens we start to question our faith, whether we have done something that God is angry at. I truly felt like I was being punished for my past and that I just had to deal with it until God was done being angry at me. Well, that is partially true. You see, I punished myself for my past, it was not God who did that, it was me. Just like, He allowed Satan to afflict Job until he realized that not everything he went through is to be understood. God afflicted me until I came to grips with the fact that the life He wanted for me had nothing to do with my sin, but everything to do with trusting that my sin is not longer even a thought in His mind. We who are saved are all sinners, we will never understand all of God’s ways and reason, but we need to trust Him, especially when we do not. When David was running from his son, he was reminded of something, he was saved, and forgiven, and as long as he trusted the LORD then He would deliver him, and He did.
[Psalms 40:1-3 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.]
Jesus Christ Magnified: [Psalms 40:1-2 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. ]
Today’s Prayer: God, Although I do not understand everything that You allow me to go through, I do understand that You have a reason and a purpose for all of it. No matter how many times I have failed You, I have maintained my integrity, I have not moved from my faith, only drawing closer to You with every heartbreak. And all that was possible because of you. Lord, give me Your strength to endure all my affliction, Your wisdom to discern Your will, the knowledge to lean on Your understand and not mine. There truly are many things too wonderful for me to understand, and the only way to get through them is to trust You. Give me Your mercy and grace, let me trust, wait, and grow closer to You through my afflictions and keep me to looking to You for guidance and direction in the way I need to go. I ask these things in Your name, Jesus. Amen.
God Bless You, I am praying for you,
Christina
Are You 100% Sure You Are Going To Heaven?: http://readytofollow.com/
Receive The KJB Daily Devotions In Your Email: http://eepurl.com/2WMzT
Missed A Message: http://imfollowingjesus.com/Biblestudy/
Visit I’m Following Jesus Missions: https://imfollowingjesus.com/Biblestudy/welcome/
I’m Following Jesus On Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/readytofollowJesus/
I’m Following Jesus On Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/imfollowingjesus
Copyright © 2021 I’m Following Jesus, All rights reserved.