Wednesday Devotional 8/19/2020
David’s Prayer of Praise (1 Chron 17:16-27)
Due to the presidential campaign of 1860, the world knows that Abraham Lincoln put in time as a rail-splitter. Few people realize, however that in his youth Abe also helped his father construct a church building and was its janitor during his teens. This fully documented fact squeezed itself into history in a most curious way.
Charles Ludwig
A SENSE of God’s kindness to us will invariably inspire us with a zeal for his glory. The more deeply we feel our obligations to him, the more ready we shall be to speak good of his name, and the more desirous that he should be honoured by every child of man. It was David’s happy lot to be eminently favoured of his God. He had been taken from the sheep-folds, to feed God’s people Israel; and he had received a promise from God, that the kingdom should be perpetuated in his family to very distant generations.
Background:
The text of David’s prayer here is substantially the same as in 2 Sam 7:18–29 although there are some alterations and omissions. The prayer is offered in the newly established tent shrine in Jerusalem to which the ark has been brought. It acknowledges the greatness and uniqueness of God and refers to the election and deliverance of Israel, revealed especially in the exodus.
Lessons to Learn:
REAL WORSHIP RESULTS IN A LIFE IN HARMONY WITH GOD
- David knew how to worship. Intelligent worship requires some knowledge of, and experience with, the Lord, and it is evident that when David was but a shepherd boy he had a knowledge of God above many of his contemporaries.
- In the moving prayer David was reverent, humble, and unselfish. Ten times David referred to himself as “Thy servant.” David prayed that all God had promised would be fulfilled and that the greatness of the Lord would be obvious to all.
- “The God of Israel, is a God to Israel:” and whatever a God can do, that he will do for them.
- (22) “For Your people Israel You made Your own people forever, and You, O LORD, became their God. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, not only is the mutual relation specified, but it is stated precisely in our text; “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” (Heb 8:10).
- (25-27) The prayer closes with the invocation: “O Lord, you are God! You have promised these good things to your servant.” Assurance of the Lord’s continuing blessing comes in the final words, “Now you have been pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever in your sight; for you, O Lord, have blessed it, and it will be blessed forever.”
Discussion idea:
- One reason David was called “a man after God’s own heart” was the way he responded to the Lord’s rebukes. What do you think? _________________________
- How has this prayer helped you in approaching God in all transparency?
- 1 Chronicles 17:16
Then David the king went in and sat before the LORD and said, “Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my house that you have brought me this far?
Re construct those words by David and Re write it in the situation you find yourself in today?