Our oldest daughter looked at me this morning and said "attah iysh". My first thought was ... WOW, she heard my sermon Sunday, and then I stopped to think about what she meant and even what God was saying through this 11 year old.
We are finishing up our Warrior series this coming Sunday, but last Sunday we talked about the things that distract us from seeing and following God. One of the stories in the message is this:
King David, the guy in the Bible who says "he was a man after God's own heart", had some issues. When his armies were busy one time, he let his mind get away from him. He stepped out on the balcony of the palace one day and saw this beautiful lady sunbathing (or something like that) on the roof of her house. David told his servants to go get that lady for him. Before you knew what happened they had sex, she was pregnant, and David had her husband killed. This is a horrible situation.
But God sent his prophet, Nathan, to talk to David and told David a parable of sorts. He said: "there was this poor dude who had 1 lamb, and there was this rich man who had lots of lambs. But one day a homeless dude showed up and asked the rich man for food. So the rich man went to the poor man's house and took his lamb for the homeless man who had a need." As Nathan told the story, David got mad about the story and even said he would deal in a harsh way with the rich man. Then Nathan said to David ... "attah iysh" or "you are the man".
2 Samuel 12:7 (niv) --- Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!...
It was David's sin. Plain and clear. This decision has huge consequences that had to be dealt with. Many times we realize that we are "the man" in not such a good way. It is in those times that we need to 'man-up', own what we have done and learn. David did. Have we?
David was distracted one day by something that seemed insignificant. But that few seconds that David flirted with led to death, pain, destruction and severe trouble for a long time. The biggest truth in story that I got was that we need to be 'the man' in the opposite direction. We lead families and our co-workers and others. But how do we lead them? Toward God or away from God?
Ezekiel 22:30 (niv) --- "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.
If God comes looking, will I be or will you be the one he finds that can keep the faith, lead others to have hope and stand tall for Him? That is a huge deal. Therefore I say to you as God said to me ...
"attah iysh"
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