What Does God Put Confidence In?
Psalm 147:10, 11 (HCSB) “He is not impressed by the strength of a horse; He does not value the power of a man. The LORD values those who fear Him, those who put their hope in His faithful love.”
Philippians 3:3 (NKJV) “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.”
1 Cor 1:26-29 (NIV) “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”
1 Sam 16:6 (NIV) “When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.’ But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart’.”
Acts 13:22-23 (NIV) “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.’ From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised.”
We have joked about how I like to spend time in the gym and build my muscles. Despite my best efforts, and all the time I put in the gym, I’m still aging. My strength and physique is not what it was when I was 24. When I was 24, you couldn’t tell me anything. For me, that was the prime of my life physically. I was in tip-top shape, captain of the Scott Air Force Base rugby team, won an award at a regional military rugby tournament, etc. But do you know God was not impressed? Lol. I got married at 24, and though my wife was very interested in my physique, she was much more interested in my heart. God is the same way.
God puts confidence in, values, places priority on what’s going on in a man’s heart. In the example of David above, we see that God chose David above all of his brothers who were taller and greater in stature than he was. Ironically, David was chosen to replace King Saul, who the children of Israel picked because he was greater in stature than everyone else.
What was the reason God chose David? It was David’s heart. God said that David was a man after His own heart that would do everything He wanted him to do. We see that God bestowed upon David the honor of being in the lineage of Christ. Can you imagine being selected by God to be in the bloodline, the DNA pool of Jesus? Wow! The reason again, the content of the heart.
David said in Psalm 139:23-24 (NIV) “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” In Psalm 51:10 (NKJV) David said: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
I challenge you to be a man after David’s example.
In many ways, you already are that man; you just don’t see it. I have seen it and its part of the passion behind these letters. I want to encourage you to keep doing the work on the inside. Nothing you can invest in will have a greater return.
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