Pleasing God

Pleasing God

Samuel 24:11 Before David got up the next morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: 12 “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’”13 So Gad went to David and said to him, “Shall there come on you three[a] years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me.”14 David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into human hands.”15 So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. 16 When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.17 When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the Lord, “I have sinned; I, the shepherd,[b] have done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall on me and my family.”

Gad the prophet came to David and told him that God wanted him to buy the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. When David told him why he wanted to buy it, Araunah offered to give it to David to help stop the plague. But David declined. Saying ““No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”  So, David did what God had asked of him. And God was faithful to stop the plague.

David is such an interesting person to me. It seemed that many times in his life he incurred God’s wrath. Almost always by not doing what God asked. But David loved the Lord and always tried to please God and restore their relationship.

Since Jesus came to be the perfect sacrifice, God doesn’t ask us for alters and burnt offerings. What He wants from us is relationship. David was an imperfect man as we all are, but even after he would mess up, he pursued God. Do we do that? Or do we only pursue Him when we mess up, when things get tough. When stresses (finances, health, divorce, problems of all kinds) come to stalk us. I am as guilty as anyone of not pursuing God as I should. This relationship if the most important we will ever have, yet do we spend time in prayer, in the Bible, in praise?

Lord, help us to work at pleasing you with our time. Time spent with you. Thank you Jesus for always being faithful to forgive and love. Amen

Shirlene Peterson