To Encourage You

1 Kings 1:6 “(David) had never at any time displeased (Adonijah) by asking, “Why have you done thus and so?” 

Sometimes the seeds of rebellion are sown at a very young age.  That’s the picture we see in the verse above regarding David’s failure as a father to Adonijah. Adonijah was the son born to David next after Absalom. Absalom had been a rebel as he schemed to take the throne from his father.  The end of it all was disaster, with Absalom being slain as he hung helplessly from a tree in which his head had become entangled.   Strangely, Adonijah followed Absalom’s terrible example, as he too plotted to become Israel’s next king. Sadly, in the end, he suffered a similar fate to his brother.  

Early in the story we are given the information above about David’s discipline of this son – there was none.  We are told that David never ruffled Adonijah’s feathers by asking him “Why?” concerning his actions.  He never questioned his motives.  And what did he get for such “kindness?”  A headstrong rebel who brought nothing but grief to his family.  It is in this example that we see a great contrast between David and David’s greatest Son. 

Listen to Jesus’ words from Revelation 3:18 as He moves to confront the church of Laodicea who had veered off-course in their misguided religion: “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline.”  And reproving them is exactly what Jesus did. Listen to His rebuke of this church who viewed themselves as above reproach: “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.”  

You see, Jesus wasn’t satisfied to let this wayward church go on their merry way.  He loved them, so He confronted them in their waywardness and sin.  He knew that their proud attitude about themselves was a road to disaster, so He stopped them in their tracks.  

So, what about you? If you call yourself a follower of Jesus, have you ever been going along when all seemed right in your world and then that world was turned upside down? And when this happened, did you ask yourself “why?”  If so, maybe there’s a very good reason that question has come to you. Maybe that question wasn’t really coming FROM you as much as TO you from above.  You see, our Father in heaven is more concerned about the motives behind our actions than He is about the actions themselves.  In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 we have the following startling words along these lines: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”  It’s just another way of God asking us “WHY have you done thus and so?”  Was it motivated by either love toward your heavenly Father or love of your neighbor? If not, then the motive wasn’t what it should have been.  

We can do things that have an appearance of good but that have a motive of selfishness and thus be blind to our own sin.  May God help us to ask ourselves “Why have you done thus and so?” regardless of what the “thus and so” is.  And may God help us to see His hand of discipline which can lead us to ask ourselves such questions with the realization that “the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6).  Although we might be displeased for a time when God’s discipline touches our lives, may we remember the lesson of David who was careful to never displease Adonijah by confronting his actions, actions that eventually led to Adonijah’s destruction rather than anything good.