And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. 1Chronicles28:9
David is nearing the end of his life and is passing the baton on to his son Solomon. There is a surprising clarity of thought that comes at the end of our lives, and so this admonition from David is worth paying attention to.
There are three important aspects to David's life-advice:
1. Acknowledge the God of your father: I was going to write "Acknowledge God" but that is more theoretical, more philosophical while David's statement refers to something more experiential. For all his faults, David had lived a life close to God - he was called a "man after God's heart." By acknowledging his father's God, Solomon would be acknowledging the God David worshipped in song and dance, the God David heard from, the God who gave David victory and the God who guided David's steps.
2. Serve Him with wholehearted devotion: Just one story from David's life illustrates this. When David buys the threshing field that will become the temple site, the owner of the land, Araunah offers the land and his cattle and firewood to David as a gift because he is, after all, the king and it is for the worship of God. But David responds "No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing." (2Sam24:24)
3. Serve Him with a willing mind: Many people have a faith that is purely observing tradition. For others faith is purely an emotional crutch. But when we engage our minds, we are reformatting the the operating system of our minds. We take faith into our day to day life experiences. When our minds are willing, we are at a place where we are ready to allow the implications our our faith in a loving, holy God to affect and impact the way we live, speak and do.
To live well we need to acknowledge a God who wants to be part of our lives, we need to serve Him with all we have and we need to engage (thought)FULLy.
---
--------------------------
Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
