February 14, 2016
“I Will” Move and Accept God’s Change
“I Will” Move and Accept God’s Change
David, a simple and humble shepherd boy who had been brought
from tending the family herd, after being anointed with the horn of oil by
Samuel, received a special gift from God.
It wasn’t a tangible gift, but a gift from God that changed the
trajectory of his entire life. We know
David wasn’t perfect during his life as evidenced from Holy Scripture. But God saw something in David that endured
him to his Lord. When the oil was poured
over his head, God bestowed upon David a special measure of His Spirit. So great and profound was God’s Spirit upon
David that David would move and accept God’s change and trust God in everything,
even his very life and health.
Enter a giant named Goliath.
Goliath was a part of the Philistine Army and was their champion. King Saul and his army, who were battling the
Philistine army was daily being taunted by this giant. Everyone feared him because of his size and
his daily taunts. And no one would step
up and challenge him.
Who should arrive, but a shepherd boy named David, full of
the Spirit of the Lord. David changed “I
could” to “I will”, because David trusted God and entrusted himself to God’s
hands and will to fulfill his calling and destiny with a simple sling and a
single stone picked from the river bottom.
We know the story, we know the outcome.
But the reality is, David was willing to move and accept God’s change
from “I could” to “I will” without question or doubt.
How many of us are willing to do this today? Potentially very few of us. But the same Spirit of the Lord that came
upon David when he was anointed to be the next king of Israel is the same
Spirit we have been anointed with in our baptism. God places upon our heads and into our hearts
the same spirit and entrusts us with the same gift of His Holy Spirit given to
David when the horn of oil was poured over his head.
In our baptism into Jesus Christ, life, death and
resurrection, we have been entrusted with the power of God to stand up and move
with Christ in our daily lives. Jesus
Christ given to each and every one of us empowers us to change our answer from
“I could” to “I will”. God is calling us
to step up in our lives and change our trajectory and accept God’s divine hand
upon our head, heart and very lives. God
is calling each and every one of us to love one another with an unmistakable
love, care, compassion and concern that will radically change our lives and
impact not only the people of Emmanuel, but all of Goodland.
Paul, in Ephesians (4:1-3) said it so well, “4
Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy
of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and
gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3 being
diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” We have been called to this bond of
peace through our baptism into Jesus Christ life, death and resurrection. One cannot separate these events from our
lives, because without them our baptism would be empty and meaningless, and
God’s will and way are never meaningless nor empty.
A young child once asked his parents, what makes a kite fly,
the string, the body of the kite or the tail?
The grandfather of the child watched as his son and daughter in law
struggled to give a response to the inquisitive child. The parents debated each of the component
pieces of the kite, the pros and the cons of each, the aerodynamics, the
materials used, the function. Finally
the child perplexed by the parents detailed conversation and response lost
interest and ran off to play with a friend outside.
All of us know that a kite cannot fly without each part of
the kite. So to in our lives and relationship
with one another and with Jesus Christ, we cannot change and move and accept
God’s change without God’s hand and Spirit upon each and every one our lives. And in our baptism and accepting God’s free
grace from His Son on the Cross of Calvary, God enables us to move with Christ,
our Lord and Savior, and accept God’s change of each of us into His children
through our baptism and move us today like God did David, from “I could” to “I
will”.
May God remind us of His hand and especially His Spirit upon
our lives and enable each of us to be diligent and walk in a manner worthy of
the calling we have been called. For our
calling like David’s comes from God Who gives each of us His Holy Spirit and
empowers each of us to change our answer from “I could” to “I will”. AMEN.
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