{"id":4668,"date":"2023-04-04T07:05:57","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T12:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4668"},"modified":"2023-04-04T07:05:57","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T12:05:57","slug":"devotional-on-2-samuel-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-2-samuel-31\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on 2 Samuel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-ANB9CbS1u1I\/Xikg1mrLlBI\/AAAAAAABDok\/3Buzu6WYWHk0ufy3Zp5JUOWSNUl7iQtKgCKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/P8129989.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2015 -Pictured Rocks Cruise &#8211;  Munising, MI<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nGetting out what we put in<br \/>\n2 Samuel 24: I&#8217;m not going to offer God, my God, sacrifices that are no sacrifice.<br \/>\nThe final story in 2 Samuel is difficult, if not impossible, to understand. It seems that David, fearful that God wouldn&#8217;t supply an army strong enough to protect Israel, decides to do a national census. The result is that the Lord moves to punish David and Israel. The king is given three choices of punishment and David picks three days of epidemic sweeping the land because he\u2019d rather be directly in the hands of God than be punished through the actions of his enemies as is proposed in the other two alternatives. This story doesn&#8217;t work for me very well. Offhand, it sounds as though an epidemic came and someone connected it to David&#8217;s lack of faith in taking the census. However, it\u2019s right here in the Bible, so I\u2019ll take it at face value, while, at the same time, keep in mind that there&#8217;s certainly more going on here than I see when simply reading the story. However, what happens next is easy to understand and challenging to me in my relationship with God. The plague is sweeping across the land and thousands are dying. David is told to build an altar in a specific place. If he does so, and offers sacrifices there, the plague will stop. David goes to the owner of the land and asks to purchase it. The man, Araunah, offers to give it to him but David replies that he isn&#8217;t going to offer to God that which costs him nothing. The price is set, the purchase made, the altar built, and the sacrifice is made, thus ending the plague. While I struggle with this story, I\u2019m reminded of the tendency to offer God that which costs us nothing. We attend church when it\u2019s convenient, we pray when we think we have the time, and in general, we practice a low impact religion. David&#8217;s example is one we need. We get out of our relationship with God what we put into it.<br \/>\nTake Away: I\u2019m going to give the Lord my best because I want to get all I can from living in a quality relationship with him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Getting out what we put in 2 Samuel 24: I&#8217;m not going to offer God, my God, sacrifices that are no sacrifice. The final story in 2 Samuel is difficult, if not impossible, to understand. It seems that David, fearful that God wouldn&#8217;t supply an army strong enough to protect Israel, decides to do a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1481,7],"tags":[118,340,651,900,940],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4668"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14377,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668\/revisions\/14377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}