Recovery Devotional 298 The Man of God

JMD Devotional 298 2 Chronicles 8:14 The Man of God

And he appointed, as ordered by David his father, the divisions of the priests for their service, and the Levites to their offices to praise and to serve before the priests as the duty of every day required, and the gatekeepers also by their divisions at every gate; for so had David the man of God commanded.

Years after his death, King David was still distinguished as ‘the man of God’. Though his detractors could have called him ‘the adulterer’, or ‘the murderer’; those were isolated incidents, and not the pattern of his life. How does one stand out among his peers with such distinction? I do not think it possible without the continual exercise of small, daily disciplines that keep one’s heart and mind focused on spiritual things. The habit of time alone with God, meditation on His Word, singing spiritual songs: consistency of passion ultimately defines the person.

Sad it is to settle for being most known as ‘the sports fanatic’, ‘the chocoholic’, ‘the comedian’, ‘the bookworm’, ‘the womanizer’, ‘the sex addict’, or any other epitaph. True, we have all slipped; but how we get up and proceed each day defines the new creature we are in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). May we not be defined by our temptations and weaknesses, but by who and what we are committed to become.

Dear God,

My enemies could call me many negative things and hardly a slander would be without some measure of truth. To some degree, I must confess being unreliable, untruthful, unfaithful, unholy, unrighteous and unloving. But do not let me be defined by my failures, Lord; for You have come to live in me, and have redeemed this soul, and will make all things new. May no description fit me that does not include Your presence and residence in my heart and life. A man is nothing but dust apart from You; may God be magnified!

Amen

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*New International Version (NIV)

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**Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. (Eugene Peterson's easy-to-read, contemporary Scripture translation)

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