Don’t Stay in the Stronghold
And so huddled around David were the distressed, those in debt, the discontented, and those who are under attack. But a verse here fascinated me, 1 Samuel 22:5, because a prophet says to David, “Do not stay in the stronghold. Go into the land of Judah.”
Leave the Quiet Place!
Don't stay in the stronghold. Go out. I thought this was profound. You see, sometimes we find ourselves huddling around God in our little sacred spaces, maybe in church, maybe in our own prayer closet. And that's where our faith lives. Our faith never leaves that place.
But God is saying, don't stay in the stronghold. Go out and take your faith into the world. Yes, you are safe here with me, but go out. Don't just sit here. Go and do something. Go and show the world my love.
That old hymn Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus has a line in one of the verses that says “Go to a world that is dying. His perfect salvation to tell.” Go! Go. Yes, turn your eyes upon Jesus in the stronghold, in the safe place. And then go.
Leave Church and Follow God in the World
I think our churches need to know this. Because, yes, it's important to go to church and to have those sacred moments with God in a safe place. But we're not called to go to church all the time. We're called to go to church to fill up on our strength and then to leave and to go back into a world that is dying. And tell people about the good news.
I always pray that our church is not a church that just says, “Come to church everybody” and then we don't do anything else. But that it's a church where we say, “okay, now let's go out as a church, as people of God, and take what we've learned at church in the stronghold out back into the land.”
What Will You Do For God?
Hear those words today: “Do not stay in the stronghold”. And do what you can outside of the stronghold, outside of church, outside of your daily quiet place, and show the love of Jesus in your words and your actions and your priorities. Because then the Saul’s of the world and those who are coming after God's people will see, number one, we're not afraid. And number two, they'll see in us something special, some light, some glory, something different, which will draw them, God willing, to our Lord.
