To Encourage You

2 Samuel 15:19-21 “Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, ‘Why do you also go with us? Go back and stay with the king, for you are a foreigner and also an exile from your home. You came only yesterday, and shall I today make you wander about with us, since I go I know not where? Go back and take your brothers with you, and may the Lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you.’ But Ittai answered the king, ‘As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will your servant be.’”

To hear some people talk, if a person follows Jesus all their problems will go away.  There’s a popular preacher from Houston who is telling anyone who will listen to him that following Jesus will result in “Your Best Life Now.” He wrote a best-selling book about it with that title.   He sounds like he could serve as a spokesman for a wanna-be king in the Bible. His name was Absalom. He conspired to wickedly usurp the throne from his own father, David, and to do so he promised those who would follow him that he would take care of them and all their problems in life would disappear (2 Samuel 15:1-6).  

But the followers of the true king found themselves in a much different situation.  We read about one of them in the passage above. His name is Ittai.  When he tried to attach himself to David, David initially tried to dissuade him.  He warns him that it wouldn’t be easy.  He tells him he will be living the life of an exile. He warns him that he’ll be leaving a life he knew and going into a life of the unknown. 

This all sounds like another king the Bible tells us about, i.e., the Son of David, the King of kings. On the one hand Jesus urges us to follow Him, but He is completely truthful to us regarding the cost.  To a rich young ruler, He put it this way: “Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21).  The result? The rich young ruler walked away.  To a scribe that aspired to follow Him wherever He would go, Jesus warned, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). Then to his disciples, right after Jesus prophesied His own impending death, He said this: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25).  Jesus never soft pedalled what it would mean to follow Him. He warned His followers of mistreatment, persecution, even death. He warned them that “no servant is greater than his master” (John 15:20), and that the way the world treated Him was the same way they would treat anyone who followed Him.  It’s not an easy message. It’s not much of a sales pitch.  

So why would anyone follow Him?  It’s because He is telling us the truth.  You see, today, just like in the case of Absalom, there is a usurper who is a wanna-be king.  He’ll do anything to get you to follow him. He’ll promise riches, pleasure, your best life now.  But he’s a liar and the father of lies and his promises, while sometimes true in the short term, will lead only to misery in the end.  About his way Jesus has said, “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). That’s exactly where the path of the usurper will always lead.  But the Way of the cross, the Way of the Truth, while it may be fraught with difficulties in the short term, will lead to eternal glory in the end.  

So, who are you following? Who do you believe?  Will you follow the path of the usurper, or will you follow the one and only King of kings?  Do you have the attitude of Ittai, and can you say with him as he chose to follow the true king: “As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will your servant be”?

From a Roman prison, one of his waypoints as he followed the true King, the apostle Paul wrote the following words: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).  Paul knows how very true this is at this very moment, for he followed his King into Paradise.   And it will prove true for each and every person who has ever chosen or who will now choose to follow the true King of kings.