Brian Doerksen – You Are My Home

As I read about the last days of Kind David I was thinking that he was finally going to rest. Even so, there is conflict right up to his last days. I sometimes think that my last days are going to be in retirement – travelling, gardening, visiting, discipling but I best be prepared to be in the thick of things right until my days are counted as my last.

Not only in the thick of things, but discipling, mentoring and coaching my successor(s). I think success is dependent on succession. I know that David did everything in his power to make sure that Solomon was prepared to build the temple, except he failed to make him king – to take his place to lead. In resisting to pass on the torch of leadership, not only did he fail to disciple Solomon, he opened the door for his second oldest son to think that he could possibly be the next ruler of Israel. While some of David’s key men supported the idea, most knew it was Solomon who was the one to lead even if he was young and inexperienced.

Reminds me of the conversation Paul had with Timothy about not putting youth and inexperience as a hindrance to ministry.

In fact, Paul warned the Corinthian church that our battle was not of the earthly kind but was in the spiritual realm. Has nothing really to do with how old we are.

 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. – 2 Corinthians 10:4  ESV

Alan Redpath former pastor at Moody Bible Church, Chicago, writes that…

The process of victory which our Lord taught His disciples was this: that if you cease to resist in the realm of carnality, then you are resisting automatically in the realm that is spiritual, and in this way you overcome the enemy. Resist, counterattack, deal with the situation upon the same level that the world deals with it, and you are defeated. But refuse to follow that principle of life; take up rather the principle of the cross and by non-combat in carnal levels you are combating the enemy in spiritual levels and therefore you will overcome.

I think Paul was trying really hard to tell us that we are only who we are in Christ as we come under His saving Lordship. It is in the obedience and the life of obedience that we encounter and experience the truth. The Navigators have what they call a Wheel Illustration that identifies the entire Christian walk surrounded by obedience. It is a synonym for salvation. It would be fair to say that obedience is a mark of true salvation.  There we find our true rest.