Good morning Everyone! I am continually blessed by your comments. Thank you!!
2nd Samuel chapter 15.
This is a sad chapter because King David's son, Absalom, begins to build a division between the people of Israel and King David his dad. Absalom begins to win the favor of Israel's hearts through deception. And with his ongoing deception he then becomes declared King at Hebron. He gained so much power that King David and many of his people had to flee their City for fear of their lives.
What would cause a son to fight so hard to overpower his father? Absalom lied and used deception to gain power and to gain favor in order to overthrow his dad's Kingship.
When Absalom killed his brother years ago and was ostracised by David, he had a few years to feel as if he was unloved. I'm certain that overtime the feelings of hate and resentment and bitterness developed toward David his dad. Once these feelings develop into a person, it's no telling what a person may do. The fact that Absalom killed his brother years earlier is an example of how his hate grew towards a person which resulted in his brother's death. This Time It's toward his dad. We see just what a person is willing to do when hate and bitterness develop. A disgruntled employee fired from his job goes back to the workplace and shoots people. A student in high school is bullied by his peers, shows up at school shooting people. A child abused by parents seek revenge by killing the parent. I was bullied at school and remember wanting so bad to get revenge. I rehearsed in my mind more than once getting into a fight with my opponent and figuring out how I could get the edge on them.
If hate and bitterness is not daily surrendered to the Lord, there's no telling what could develop in one's mind. Sadder yet, during this whole time one feels justified with their thoughts and actions.
Four things that I thought of that we could do to help prevent such problems:
- Such feelings need to be daily surrendered to the Lord!
- Communicating with the person who you are at odds with so as to work out such differences.
- Getting professional help as a means of intervention for counseling and healing.
- Doing what Jesus said to do:
… Matthew 5:38-39 says to love your enemy and pray for them.
…Luke 6:27-28 says regarding our enemies we are told to love our enemies, do good to them, bless them and pray for them.
… Romans 12:19-21 says that getting revenge is not our job it's the Lord's. Instead we are told that our job is to feed our enemies when they are hungry or thirsty. In other words we are not to be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.
Lord help me to put these things into practice so that I don't let the hate or bitterness develop into my heart but rather love peace and forgiveness.
We read about how David was hiding out to stay alive by running away from Saul all those years ago and in this chapter we saw him have to escape once again. This time instead of his best friend’s father, it’s his own son that he has to flee from. How sad that hatred and bitterness grew in Absalom’s heart towards David during all those years that it reached this point!
Pastor Blair shared four great ways to deal with difficult issues that could prevent problems from getting worse like we saw happening in David and Absalom’s relationship.
Sometimes we might be wronged, offended or hurt by someone and that person doesn’t even know it. Here are directions that are given in Matthew 18:15-17.
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
God keeps bringing me back to Colossians 3:12-15.
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.”
One more passage that hit me today is 1 John 3:16-18.
“By this we know love, that He (Jesus) laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
May our hearts be filled with compassion and open to love, give and forgive as Jesus wants us to love, give and forgive.
Thanks for reminding us of those NT references on praying and loving on our enemies, PB and Jim. I think one of God’s greatest lessons (and there have been many) is the one to continually pray for someone who is “pushing my buttons” or treating me badly. The prayer can’t be about asking God to change them but rather for Him to change me … to remove the buttons from me so there is nothing to push, to let me see them as He does, to put myself in their shoes and appreciate the trials they are facing. After praying daily like that for a month or so, I can’t have wrong thoughts about the person – it just isn’t possible. It’s then that I am able to love them in the way He asks me to. And that’s when I feel His blessing on my heart.
There is a high point in today’s reading that I just love. V32 – David was weeping but his weeping did not keep him from worshipping God. What a wonderful example to us. Read Psalm 3 for some of David’s thoughts while he fled from Absalom.