Humble yourself

2 Chronicles 6:16 (Solomon speaking) - “Now therefore, O LORD, the God of Israel, keep with Your servant David, my father, that which You promised him, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man to sit on the throne of Israel, provided your sons are careful to walk in My law as you, [David,] have walked before Me.’” 

2 Chronicles 7:17-18 (God’s response) - “As for you [Solomon], if you will walk before me as your father David walked, and do everything that I have commanded you, and observe My statutes and My ordinances, then I will establish your royal throne just as I covenanted with your father David, saying, ‘You will not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.’” 

Did you catch the beautiful truth from these passages?! If you blinked you may have missed it! In Solomon’s dedication and God’s response, God said “...are careful to walk in My law as you, [David,] have walked before Me.” And again... “As for you [Solomon], if you will walk before me as your father David walked.” If I remember correctly David committed adultery and murder. Right? Yet, here God is saying twice to Solomon, “walk with Me as your Father walked with me”! This one truth showed me so many things, that I can barely contain myself! Let’s take a look. 

First, the truth of God’s Word that He not only forgives, but He forgets. There is no mention of “follow Me like your Father followed Me, exxxcceeeppt in those two little areas that he messed up big time”. No, God said “follow Me like your Father followed Me”. Period. God goes even further in 1 Kings 9:4, where He said that David had “integrity of heart and uprightness” (honorable/honest). David the adulterer. David the murderer. That didn’t matter. All God saw was David the forgiven. And his sins were forgotten. Secondly, in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14, God lays out how we should come back to Him if we stray. He said: “and My people, who are called by My Name, humble themselves, and pray and seek (crave, require as a necessity) My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear [them] from heaven, and forgive their sin and heal their land." The only way David could have been forgiven and his sin forgotten is that he followed these steps.

1)Humbled himself. That’s the first step because doesn’t all sin come from a place of pride? David thought he knew best so he did what seemed and felt right to him. So step one MUST be that he humbled himself and remembered who was, in fact, God!

2) Pray and seek God’s face - now that he reestablished who was God, he had to get back to communing with Him. To seeking His face, that is to crave to the point of necessity, all that God is. God then, returned to a place of worship and David’s desire for Him outweighed his desire for all else. 

3) Lastly, he turned from his wicked ways. If he did step one and two, step three is just a natural progression. He humbled himself and said, “I am not God. I DO NOT know what is best”, then he began to crave Him to the point of necessity, to the point that all else was drowned out, then David, naturally, turned from his wicked ways to keep his eyes on God. 

When God looked at David, that is what He saw. He saw a man that repented and continually sought to please God. He didn’t see a perfect man, but He did see a man that did what He asked after David sinned, therefore, David was someone God wanted Solomon to look to. Which brings me to the last revelation of these passages. God isn’t asking us to be perfect. He knows we are going to sin. It’s our response to our sin that matters to Him. Are we, like David, humbling ourselves, praying and craving God to the point of necessity, and then turning (repenting) from our wicked ways? If so, then God says the same thing to those around us as He did to Solomon and those around David. “Look how she is doing it. She isn’t perfect. I have not asked nor expected her to be. But she is the example I want you to see. When she sins, when she makes mistakes, she returns to Me. She humbles herself and puts me back in my rightful place, as Lord. She may have stumbled once or she may have stumbled too many times to count, I don’t remember. What I remember, what matters most to Me, is that she turned and asked Me for forgiveness. I gave it and forgot the offense. So look to her. See the mistakes as much as you see the victories, because you will fail, you will sin, and when you do I want you to remember the way she walked with Me.” Being a beacon of light to this world is hard and I know we all feel like we are poor examples for those around us, but God sees it differently. He doesn’t see our many mistakes, He sees our heart. A heart with a burning desire to know and please Him. Rest assured God is using you to shine His truth and His ways into the lives of those around you, no matter what sins have come before. You are forgiven. They are forgotten.