Today's Reading: 1 Samuel 22

 

Distressed, In Debt, Discontented

From out of all the land, David (on the run from Saul) began to gather together a band of men, a motley crew to be sure. Everyone who was stressed, everyone who was in debt, everyone who was discontented. They gathered together with David down there at Adullam.

Everyone who was was bitter of soul gathered to him; about 400 of them.  Can you imagine that?  It’s hard enough to pastor a church full of contented people.  But what about a band of discontented people? Think about what David had to put up with, “Why is this cave so cold? Why is it so smoky in here?  Can’t you get him to move over some? He’s in my space.  David, are you ever going to quit playing that harp?  I’m trying to sleep here.”  Can you imagine?  Or, every day having 3-4 guys trying to borrow a shekel from you?  And all of them scared on top of it.  

Yet this was David’s army. This rag-tag bunch of men would go on to become “giant killers” like their commander.  They would fight off attacks from enemies, and conquer even the strongest foes.  God turned this motley crew into victors for His kingdom.

In the same way, the Church of Jesus Christ is comprised of a bunch of distressed, in debt, and discontented people.  People who had been walking in darkness and had become victims of bitterness in their soul.  Lost people with no leader, no direction, and no future. Until the day they met their Great Commander, Jesus Christ.

Jesus takes this rag tag bunch of lost people and turns them into the greatest “fighting machine” on earth.  Daily we hear reports of people formerly lost in darkness being used by God to shine His light on others lost as well. We hear of believers who have taken to their knees in spiritual warfare and have decisively defeated the prince of darkness in their relationships, their communities, their families, and their nations.  Jesus gathers the losers to make them winners.

These are the types of people Jesus gathers around Himself. In 1 Corinthians 1:26, the Apostle Paul reminds us to “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.”  God deliberately chooses men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, and chooses these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies.” That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.