DAVID'S ARMY

We should hear the call to God’s army like David’s men did in 1 Samuel 22. In this army it was not David who called them. They heard about David and they came to him at Adullam. Adullam means a place of rest, and also, the righteousness of a people.

Who came to David at Adullam? Let’s look at 1 Samuel 22. “…So when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him.” (1 Samuel 22:1) They feared that they would be killed because they belonged to David. “And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. …” (1 Samuel 22:2) All those who needed a resting place, the ones who needed an answer, a new life, a new beginning, these were the ones that came because no one would live in the desert, unless he had come to a dead-end street.

This army David had was untrained and discontented and highly idealistic about life. This all had to be melted away through a hard boot camp, to make soldiers out of them and to transform them from wild men and hurt men, to men who caught a vision, with stability and discipline. A big transformation had to happen. If we come to Adullam, but don’t want David to be the captain, it will just be another place and not a place of transformation.

When we don’t allow Jesus to be our captain and allow people to lead us, we will always be a wild man with an Ishmael spirit. Sometimes people join an organization, and they think they are coming to Adullam, but they refuse to bend with the winds of the Spirit. Even when they fast and have a glimpse into a new fulfillment, they end up more bitter, hurt and rejected than before. This is because it is not the flesh that leads, but Christ, and we cannot see Christ with our fleshly, rebellious eyes. We cannot overcome our hurts with a fleshly answer. That resting place can only come as flesh is broken, and the vision of His purpose and reality comes forth through our new lives.

“Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears; and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.” (Luke 7:36-38)

The woman was one like those that belonged to David’s army, a sinner woman. She came to Jesus who was sitting at meat. She did not beg Jesus to give her meat; she knew that she was not worthy to sit at the table.

Many times we come to fellowships and churches, and we know that we are not worthy in their eyes to sit at their table of fellowship, where they sit with Jesus. We cannot partake of their food and love because we are not recognized and the only way we can come is to bring our alabaster box, our life to be poured out. We are in their midst, not because we are accepted, but we are there because of Jesus. He opened the way through His presence.

The woman washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, kissed His feet and anointed them with ointment. This is how we are transformed. We are transformed when we stop trying to be accepted, but we give our lives, sinners’ lives, bought with a price through the blood of Jesus, and pour them out at the feet of Jesus. It is a different fellowship. The feet are never seen. As she poured out her life at His feet, she was transformed.

Simon, the Pharisee, a learned man, was sitting at the table of fellowship and missed it all. He thought he was with Jesus and saw himself as equal with Him and maybe a little above Him because he did not know his true place. “Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil.” (Luke 7:44-46)

It is possible to do the love service of the Lord, if all we want is to be accepted, liked and wanted? If we still seek those needs, we will never know the true key of life and that is to be a poured out offering unto Him.

“Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” (John 7:47) If we make ourselves equal with Jesus through presumption, self-edification and self-assurance, then we will only know His forgiving power in a small measure. Our love will only be able to let Jesus be at our table, and even to reprove Him as in John 7:39: “Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, ‘This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”

We will reprove Him for what He is doing in our lives and in other people’s lives and never know the love and power and forgiveness?

In His Love,
      Sigi

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