“Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies. “‘The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’”
2 Samuel 7:8-15
Eternal King
Daily Devotion – December 27, 2017
Devotion based on 2 Samuel 7:8-15
See series: Devotions
Leave it to God to answer our prayers by giving us gifts that are bigger, better, and greater than anything we could ask for or imagine! Not only that, his gifts are global in reach and eternal in scope. They are “forever and ever!”
It’s not hard to imagine the “small” prayers prayed by David, the last son of Jesse as he tended his father’s flocks. “Kill the bear, Lord.” “Save me from the lion, O God.” But did he pray that he would one day sit on the throne of Israel? Doubtful!
Yet the Lord who found him in the pasture placed him on the throne of Israel. The Lord defeated his enemies. The Lord made David famous and firmly established the kingdom of Israel with David as king. The Lord gave David and his people rest from all their enemies. There was a period of national peace and prosperity in Israel which was never equaled again.
The Lord’s promises to David did not stop at the end of David’s life. God had bigger, better and greater things in mind. The eternal God made eternal promises. Long after David died, God raised up one of his descendants to establish his throne forever in a kingdom that endures forever. Great David’s greater Son, Jesus Christ, became an eternal King in an eternal kingdom. Though David desired to build a material, temporal house for the LORD, Jesus built the spiritual, permanent house of God. Jesus built his Father’s house by establishing peace between us and God through his sacrificial death on the cross for us. By his resurrection from the dead, complete victory over our enemy Satan is ours to enjoy forever.
Jesus builds his Father’s house today by making us part of God’s kingdom through the gospel. By faith in David’s great descendant, Jesus Christ, we are privileged members of his glorious kingdom. Eternal promises from our eternal King belong to us who enjoy the kingdom and the power and the glory of God forever and ever.
Prayer:
Thank you, Lord God, for building an eternal house for us by the eternal King, great David’s greater Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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