Commentary on "Joab: David's Weak Strongman"

JONATHAN BILIMA

 

Day 2: Sunday, November 14, 2010 - A Family Affair

 

Overview

In today’s lesson, we take a look at Joab’s selfishness and his appetite for revenge. We are then asked to look at ourselves and how our actions are often driven by selfish ambition and justified by self-righteousness.

 

Observations

The truth is, of our own accord, we are filled with selfish ambition and other self-serving sin. In Romans 7:15, Paul states that he doesn’t understand his own actions:

For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.

When we focus on what we do and don’t do we are left without hope, just as Paul discovered.

Our only hope is in Jesus who fills us with His Spirit and gives us the very mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16):

For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16 ESV).

Read Romans 6-8 and Galatians 5 (included below) to discover how life in the Spirit is the only way to live a life that is not self-centered.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 

Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. 

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! 

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. 

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (Galatians 5 ESV)

 

GO TO DAY 3

 

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