A young couple just starting out in marriage might ask a couple, who are celebrating their 50th year of marriage- what is your secret?
One cook might ask another cook- what is your secret that makes your receipt taste so much better than mine?
Since I moved to Mississippi, I have had the opportunity to attend several birthday celebrations for people who have reached 90 years old and older. And my question to them- what is your secret?
There was a man in the Bible by the name of David. God says this about David in 1 Samuel 13:14 – the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people. And do you what I would want to ask David. What is your secret? How did you become a man after God’s own heart?
You may be sitting there thinking to yourself-Bro Dave, you can not ask David what his secret is because he went the way of all men- to the grave. Let me let you in on something that I know. He left me some notes to discover the secret and they are found in the Bible. And there are two of them.
Psalm 16:5-6 (NKJV)
5 O LORD, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot.
6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance.
Secret #1 David understood the way that God blessings are to work.
DAVID ALLOWED GOD TO BLESS HIM RATHER THAN BLESSING HIMSELF, AND ONCE HE GOT THAT BLESSING HE SAW GOD AS THE KEEPER OF THOSE BLESSINGS.
5 O LORD, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup “of blessings”; You maintain my lot.
As Christians we can mess up verse 5 in one of two ways; and some us may actually mess up both ways.
First, David wanted his blessing to come from God rather than himself. Yes, we can create our own blessings. Let me give you a couple of examples. I decide that I want something that I have been looking at for a long time and desiring. Finally, without talking to God, I go out and charge it to my account bring it home and tell everyone God gave it to me. I am sorry God did not bless you, you blessed yourself.
Another example, you move to a new job without talking to God because it offers you more money. You know because it was more money that it had to be from God, but you never asked Him. You tell everyone that God has blessed you and in fact you blessed yourself.
David did not originate his own blessings. God originated blessing in David’s life. When Samuel came to David’s home looking for the King of Israel, David did not originate the blessing. After viewing all of Jesse’s other children, it was God who told Samuel to ask if there are any more children. David had nothing to do with the blessing. He was out in the field tending to the sheep. He did not know what was going on, but God was blessing him.
Let me tell you something, God does not need my help to bless me. But yet, there are Christians all the time who try to generate their own blessing or try to assist God in blessing them.
Let me tell you why that don’t work.
James 1:17 (NKJV)
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Blessings originate in heaven. They originate from the hand of God in heaven. Now, I can understand the reason why that is the case. I remember, when I was growing up, my dad if he did not want me to touch something and mess it up, he would put it in a place that I could not reach. It was safe and he knew it could be just like he left it because I could not touch it. He knew if I touched it that I would mess it up. And you know what? It did not keep me from trying to get to it. And I am afraid we try to get to God’s blessing and all we are going to do is mess them up.
David knew not to touch God’s blessings. Let them be what they are. He did not try to change them to meet his needs.
Secondly, David knew that God was the keeper of the blessings not David. Twice while King Saul was pursing David in 1 Samuel 24 and in 1 Samuel 26, David had the perfect opportunity to keep his blessing and became king by killing Saul, but David refused, and David refused to allow his warriors to kill Saul. David kept the keeping of the blessing in the hands of God rather than taking it upon himself to keep the blessing.
I think a lot of us Christians, this is where we falter, we try to keep the blessing that God has for us rather than letting God keep the blessing.
Secret #2 David understood the balance between living life fully on this earth and keeping an eye toward heaven.
DAVID SAW WHAT GOD IS DOING RIGHT NOW IN HIS LIFE BUT HE WAS ALSO CONFIDENT ABOUT WHAT GOD HAS IN STORE FOR HIM IN THE FUTURE.
6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Way too many Christians spend their life looking back at what did not happen the way that they wanted. And so ,they basically stop living; stuck in the past. And too many Christians spend their life looking to heaven that they are missing the now of life.
David says that I see and I live in the now. I see what God is doing for me now. And the place He has me is pleasant. Oh, David could have looked back with regrets for some of the things that he did in his life. Or, he could have longed for the future to be with the child that he lost. But he chose to live in the here and now.
But David says right now, right where you have me, it is a pleasant place because this is where you are at work in my life.
How many Christians are satisfied right where they are right now? Can you say:
I am so blessed; the boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places because I got the spouse that God gave me.
I am so blessed; the boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places because I got the job that God had for me.
I am so blessed: the boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places because I live in the exact place God had for me.
David could do that. Can you?
Although David lived in the present, he kept one eye toward the heavens. He says in verse 6 Yes, I have a good inheritance
I remember the time that David mourn for his child before he died. But when the child died got up, got dressed and ate. And the servants asked why. And David’s answer, he cannot return to me, but I can go to him.
David keep an eye on eternity; but he lived his life in the present.
And we should too.
Conclusion:
David was a man after God’s own heart. You and I can be men and women after God’s own heart. But it will take us understanding the way God’s blessings work, and it will take us understanding the balance of living in the present with one eye to the future.
