5th Gear: David: A Man After God’s Own Heart?

5th Gear: David: A Man After God’s Own Heart?

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God tells us that King David is a man after his own heart. I have often wondered why. Oh come on, David did a lot of things wrong, including but not limited to his affair with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. He was a sorry father, which resulted in his own son Absalom’s rebellion.

Yet, there it is in black and white:

After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’ (Acts 13:22)

Okay, David is a man after God’s own heart, but “ … he will do everything I want him to do.”??

Really? I would say he most emphatically did not. So we must look deeper.

Here are two instances I think demonstrate why God viewed David in this way. When David is confronted by the prophet Nathan over his sin with Bathsheba, David does not try to deflect, blame, or play the victim. And unlike so many today, he certainly did not say, “Mistakes were made.” No, he owned his sin:

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” (2 Samuel 12:13)

And again, he owned up to the egregiousness of his sin in his 51^st Psalm:

³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; (Psalm 51:3-4)

Later, when David yet again sinned against God by counting his soldiers – i.e., in his world he was relying on his “Fighting Forces 401k” for security, not God – he sought a way to sacrifice to his Father, to pay for his sin. David set out to buy a threshing floor from Araunah to make his sacrifice, but Araunah tried to give it to him.

Pay close attention to David’s response to this offered gift:

But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” (2 Samuel 24:24 Bold added)

David was a man after God’s own heart because 1) He realized his sin was primarily against his Father – 2) He then owned his sin immediately, with no excuses. – 3) And finally, he was unwilling to pay for his sin with something that did not require him to actually pay anything.

Let’s finish with this quick comparison of David’s world perspective and ours:

1. We do not typically think in terms of our sin being first and foremost against God; we think about the person against whom we sinned.
2. Yet we might not even think about that person, but instead we make all kinds of deflections and excuses … “Mistakes were made.”
3. We rarely think in terms of sacrificing anything that would actually cost us. We prefer to sacrifice the easy things instead, that is, if we are even willing to sacrifice anything for Jesus.

Our worldview is ourselves … our Self; David’s worldview, the prism through which he viewed the world, was always his Heavenly Father.

For each of us to grow in our walk with our Father, we must answer honestly this question: “How do I compare to these 1-2-3 questions above?”

Next Week: David and Goliath – What … Who … Do you See?