DEVOTION
2ND SAMUEL
LOYAL AND STEADFAST
2 Sam 22:26-30
26 "To the faithful you show
yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, 27 to the pure
you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd. 28 You
save the humble, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low. 29 You are
my lamp, O LORD; the LORD turns my darkness into light. 30 With your help I can
advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.
NIV
With God, all things are possible.
The first task or lifestyle of a believer is to be faithful to the Lord God
Almighty. But how do we show our faithfulness? What is being faithful? We know
that he is faithful, for He is perfect, or perfection, which includes every
aspect of him. So faithful is His nature, but it is not ours. However, we can
choose to be faithful, but again, what does that look like? The English meaning
of the word faithful means to be loyal and steadfast. Yet in Hebrew, this word means more like 'mercy' than 'faith'. So then, to the merciful, He shows himself to
be merciful. However, there is also this sense of being faithful, as in
faithful to show mercy. But there is that concept of faithfulness, as in this translation, and the Hebrew and Greek words that mean being faithful—being
loyal to God and steadfast in our believing Him. We have noted this before and
believe this is so important that we understand the difference between believing in
God and believing God. We cannot be faithful to someone we believe in, but we
can be faithful to someone we believe. To believe God means we trust Him to be
absolutely true about everything or all things, including our lives. Are we faithful
in accordance with what He directs us, or the work He does within us? Then, this
idea about being blameless, we know that He has declared those who believe
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that He came to save us, going to the
cross with all our sins upon himself, blameless and holy in his sight. So then He shows Himself to be blameless to us, whom He declared blameless. That is to
be pure, without spot or blemish. Then we get to this part about the fact that He
saves the humble, but not the haughty. This word humble in Hebrew carries
the meaning of being in need, poor, or lowly. This is how we must approach the
throne of God, bowing before Him, for we are needy, for without Him we are lost,
living in a pit of darkness and despair. He is our lamp, our light that shines
on the path He has determined we should walk. Because He shows us the way, and
goes before us, and beside us and behind us, that is all around us, we can
march through any obstacle and scale any hurdle that stands in our way, as
we remain loyal and steadfast to our God.
