September 21st, 2017

2 Samuel 11: 11-15

“Uriah replied ‘the ark and the armies of Israel and Judah are living in tents, and Joab and my master’s men are camping in the open fields. How could I go home to wine and dine and sleep with my wife? I swear that I would never do such a thing.’ ‘Well stay here today,’ David told him, ‘and tomorrow you may return to the army.’ So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. Then David invited him to dinner and got him drunk. But even then, he couldn’t get Uriah to go home to his wife. Again, he slept at the palace entrance with the king’s palace guard.  So the next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and gave it to Uriah to deliver. The letter instructed Joab, station Uriah on the front lines where the battle is fiercest. Then pull back so that he will be killed.”

In this text, there are two persistent people, Uriah and David. It takes Uriah a lot of discipline to be able to not go home and relax. He knows that he is in an army. He knows that if he goes home he might not want to go back. So he guards his mind and knows how he needs to press on in order to continue to fight the race that he has started. He doesn’t forget that he is in the midst of a war. That all his brothers and friends are fighting and losing their lives trying to protect their kingdom. I often do not have the same mindset as Uriah. I forget that we are in a battle between heaven and hell. I get lazy and just go with the flow, I listen to the suggestions of David and follow them. I forget that I am not serving David I am serving God. I need to be strong especially with our ten days coming up I need to remember I am still in battle and I can’t forget and go an get drunk on the pleasures of a vacation. It will be hard to not get caught up on the materialistic things but to truly focus on God and even evangelizing to those around me in Florida, because it isn’t my home and it can still be a battle ground.

Application: Make a commitment to do devos an hour every morning in Florida.