Recovery Devotional 325 Faithful Unto Death

JMD Devotional 325 2 Samuel 15:13,14,18-21 Faithful Unto Death

[Absalom rewarded his father’s mercy with orchestrating a bloody coup d’etat.]

13,14 And there came a messenger to David, saying, The hearts of the men of Israel have gone after Absalom. David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, Arise and let us flee, or else none of us will escape from Absalom. Make haste to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly and bring evil upon us and smite the city with the sword.

18-21 All David's servants passed on beside him, along with [his bodyguards] all the Cherethites, Pelethites; also all the Gittites, 600 men who came after him from Gath, passed on before the king. The king said to Ittai the Gittite, Why do you go with us also? Return to your place and remain with the king [Absalom], for you are a foreigner and an exile. Since you came only yesterday, should I make you go up and down with us? Since I must go where I may, you return, and take back your brethren with you. May loving-kindness and faithfulness be with you.

But Ittai answered the king, As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king shall be, whether for death or life, even there also will your servant be.

One of my favorite movies about death is “What Dreams may Come” starring Robin Williams. In the course of the movie, his wife is overcome with sorrow at the loss of her entire family and commits suicide, plunging her into a hell of her own creation. Robin is warned not to try to rescue her, that she can neither see nor hear him, and that if he lingers her hell will become his hell also; but he won’t abandon his mate. He tries to talk her into leaving the shadows, but she does not budge. He begins to loose his view of heaven, and her hell replaces his reality. But his act of ultimate self-sacrifice brings a glimmer of light into her soul, reviving her, and she pulls them both out of her hell. That is fiction; but the reality is that Jesus took upon Himself the entire brunt of God’s wrath toward us, and He descended into Hell to rescue us from that fate.

Psalm 16:10 For You will not abandon me to Sheol (the place of the dead), neither will You suffer Your holy one [Holy One] to see corruption.

Ephesians 4:8-10 Therefore it is said, When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive [He led a train of vanquished foes] and He bestowed gifts on men. [But He ascended?] Now what can this, He ascended, mean but that He had previously descended from [the heights of] heaven into [the depths], the lower parts of the earth? He Who descended is the [very] same as He Who also has ascended high above all the heavens, that He [His presence] might fill all things (the whole universe, from the lowest to the highest).

1 Peter 3:19-20 For Christ [the Messiah Himself] died for sins once for all, the Righteous for the unrighteous (the Just for the unjust, the Innocent for the guilty), that He might bring us to God. In His human body He was put to death, but He was made alive in the spirit, in which He went and preached to the spirits in prison, [The souls of those] who long before in the days of Noah had been disobedient, when God's patience waited during the building of the ark in which a few [people], actually eight in number, were saved through water.

Dear God,

Jesus has done it all! He tasted the bitterness of death so that I would not have to. He brought me from death unto life. What a faithful friend! He endures the anguish of the cross, and of hell to save me from the punishment I justly deserved. Help Your people to really know what they were saved from and what Jesus has really done for them so that they might overflow with praise and thanksgiving. And may we, by Your holy influence, reciprocate the loyalty and faithfulness, even unto death. Make us faithful witnesses of this salvation.

Amen

All (but*) quotes are from The Amplified Bible, published by

the Lockman Foundation. (AMP)

Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

*New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

**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)

I originally produced these blogs between 2006 and 2007, which were then published in my book, JMD Recovery Devotionals. In 2010, I am sending these out to a few people as I review them and see if my point of view has changed.

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