The glory of His name.
Today, with great joy I want to bequeath to you the words of one of my mentors Dave Busby as he wanders through the story of David and Goliath. These words pierce my heart. These words stir my heart deeply. Be nourished dear heart, with the glory of God!
“This will be one of the most important things I say all week. So if you’re going to miss something, don’t miss this. I want you to understand the motive behind the miracle because it will always be the motive behind any miracle that you experience. There was a miracle in First Samuel 17. A giant went down from the sling of a boy. But here was the motive behind the miracle. It was what freed God up to move in power. This is so important and I don’t think we get this and we need to get it.
The motive behind a miracle from God is always that God’s name would be hallowed. Notice what David said. I underlined it again in First Samuel 17, verse 46. ‘Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth that the whole world will someday read about me and what a great guy I was.’ Wrong! ‘That the whole world will talk about our church and what a cool church it is.’ Wrong! ‘That the whole world will know about my name and my ministry and my denomination.’ God could care less! I’m going to tell you what He cares about. He cares about HIS NAME! And I think so much of the restricted, miraculous, movement of God is present because we care more about our name and our tag than God’s name.
Look at the text. ‘That the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel and that this God saves for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give all of you into my hands.’ Folks, a Christian life is God centered, not man centered. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love and is wild about us and loves to do good stuff, but you make no mistake about it. Far beyond His love and His concern for us is His concern for the glory of His name. That’s why David could approach Goliath and say, ‘I come to you in a name. And it ain’t my name. It’s His name. So that when you go down, and you make no mistake about it, you are going down. And so when you go down, the key is not going to be about people reading about David and Goliath. Through the centuries the key is going to be, they’re gonna read about a name of the great God.
And I tell you what. You get a body of believers that more than anything else, they care about the glory of His name, you better watch out. It’s gonna release God to pour out a river of life. They care about His name. Now what I just said, you need to chew on that. That thought I have been chewing on for a year, for one year. And if you think you just got what I said, you didn’t get it the way you need to get it. You need to chew on that and chew on that and chew on that. It’s for the glory of His name. Isaiah 26, verse 8. ‘For Your name and Your renown and Your fame is the desire of our souls.’ You get a remnant of people who really mean that from their bones, whoa, you better strap in. God’s gonna come blowing through that place like a freight train.
Most of the stuff that we write and read in our Christian bookstores is about man and about how God wants to bless me. And I am the center of it all. It’s me! It’s me! It’s me!
IT’S NOT US!
It’s God! It’s God! It’s God! It’s God! And David knew that. He knew that and He said, ‘for the glory of Your name take down this nine feet, nine inch piece of meat for the glory of Your name, so that throughout the centuries when people think about this story, out of it they will say, O God You are great and Your name is greatly to be praised.”
THERE IS MORE!