Unique in Mercy

"There is none like you, O Lord, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears." 1 Chronicles 17:20

One of my favorite parts in the Bible are the prayers it records. You know what I mean? When someone is in their most humble position before the God of the universe, and I get to look over their shoulder. This is what is going on with David here. God has promised him to bless his children and his kingdom forever. David is understandably humbled and taken aback. Who is he that he should inherit such blessing and achieve such favor with God? The rhetorical answer is "nobody special." You say no? David was a great king and trusted in God with all his heart; he won battles and conquered nations; he prayed great prayers and showed excellent loyalty to his God. He even wrote lots of poems and songs for helping in careful praise.

But that is not the merit that David has to offer God. We find that stated in verse 7 of that same chapter. God took David from a life of herding sheep and brought him to unimaginable blessing (the Messiah was in this blessing!). Why? Because God chose to, not because David was a great man.

How about you? Do you ever find yourself believing that God has blessed you because of your faithfulness? I know I have, and do if I am honest. I struggle to separate blessing from my actions. God seems so consistent in blessing things when I am obedient, that it must be the reason. You can see it, can't you? God is sitting up in heaven watching me, and He says to Gabriel, "Hey yo, take a look at that kid. You see that obedience? That was somethin' else!" Right (note heavy sarcasm here). As further proof, He seems to bless us oftentimes even when we haven't done right. When we talk to someone about the Gospel when we feel like crud because we didn't do our Bible reading or pray, yet He gives us such enthusiastic results--oftentimes better than when we do read and pray! It is a lesson we have much to grow in, to learn that grace (unmerited favor) is not earned by our works. That should be inherent in the definition, right? If I wasn't a blockhead, a definition would be enough. Too late.

Now I ask you, have you heard of any gods that act in such ways? That go out of their way to do us good, even when we wrong them? Howabout when you kill their Son? Would you be nice to someone who did that? But He is.

He is unique and wonderful, according to all that we have seen with our eyes, known with our minds, and heard with our ears! Let all the peoples of the earth be envious of us, for we know a great God!

For Us God is NOT Normal

We continue learning of the God of our faith, from the old testament. Lots of fighting for you who like fighting. Killing and conquering. Kind kings, wicked kings, usurpers revolting. What more could we Amercian action junkies ask for? I suppose I could ask for a clearer understanding of God myself. I (probably like you) struggle to understand the differences between how God dealt with men in the old testament and now in the new covenant/testament. So far, the best understanding of it is most concisely put in the words of Mr. Spurgeon "Jesus ushered in the dispensation of nearness." I agree with this take on this old testament. God is removed from these men in a way that, through the blood of Jesus, we do not have to live with. God in His kindness is near to us. We must learn that this is NOT normal. Nor was it easy.

The normal way for God to act is how He dealt with Gehazi in II Kings 5. Gehazi was greedy and he took silver and clothes from a man of Syria, despite the fact that the prophet Elisha refused to (Gehazi was his servant-thus should obey and follow his master). And he lied to Elisha. In return for this sin, Gehazi was given Naaman's leprosy. One sin of greed leads to a lifetime of sickness. One sin. Suppose that was how God acted today. I'll just be straight up; I'd be dead! No jokes. And honestly in Gehazi's case, as in all of ours, God is being merciful by not sending him to hell for his sin. God must punish sin.

I was at a conference this week where a pastor named Ligon Duncan recounted going through this story with his six year old son. His son said to him, "Dad, Gehazi sinned and God judged him." "That's right son." "Dad, I want to do what is right but sometimes I don't; I don't want God to judge me." Mr. Duncan, not being an old Israelite, has the distinct privilege of telling his son that God does not have to judge me for their sin because Jesus took our leprosy (his privilege is knowing His name and seeing clearly the Substitution of God, which an Israelite would only have known vaguely). Jesus became the Leper so we who are sinners could be made clean. It is as the psalmist says, "[He] forgives all your iniquity, [He] heals all your diseases" (Ps. 103). Let us take the rest of the psalmists urging when his says in the previous verse, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not any of His benefits."