1 Chronicles 22
(David exhorts Solomon)

Right away in this chapter we see The Lord denying David not only a form of ministry, but a dream that the David had to build a temple for The Lord. David desired to do this thing, but The Lord had a reason for not letting David build it. Was it because David was not worthy to build it? No, but The Lord has certain people with certain skills that He wants to employ for His glory. If The Lord denies us something we wanted and gives that thing to someone else, we should rejoice for them and with them. In this situation, The Lord gave to Solomon a task of ministry that David wanted. Rather than David getting upset and not wanting to help Solomon, he comes along side him and lends his hand in the ministry without trying to takeover. He exhorts Solomon and encourages him. V.12-13 "Only the LORD give thee wisdom and understanding, and give thee charge concerning Israel, that thou mayest keep the law of the LORD thy God.
Then shalt thou prosper, if thou takest heed to fulfil the statutes and judgments which the LORD charged Moses with concerning Israel: be strong, and of good courage; dread not, nor be dismayed." David is encouraging Solomon to do this thing that The Lord has asked, and to take courage because it is the lords will he will be accomplishing. There is no place more encouraging than to be in the lords will.
Application: realize that The Lord will speak to me through other people and heed His word through them.
If someone receives something I wanted, I will rejoice with them. The Lord has a different plan for me.  

1 chronicles 21:27
 And the LORD commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.

Mercy is all about not getting what we deserve. Even when we blow it and wrong The Lord with our sin, a repentant heart will open the floodgates of mercy and grace. True repentance for our sin will bring us to our knees and cause us sorrow. We will, when truly repentant, accept full responsibility for our sin. This is just the thing that David did in the verses surrounding this one. He was in a particularly dark time in his life where he had sinned against The Lord and caused the death of 70,000 Israeli men. He knew he had sinned and for three days watched a mighty angel of The Lord massacring his people. Then David came before the lord on behalf of himself in repentance asking The Lord to punish his house, but not the people. A god leader will, at all costs, never want his followers to suffer because of his poor decisions. He will take responsibility with boldness and conviction. Then, when David obeyed The Lord and sacrificed, the angel was commanded to relent. David did not get the punishment he deserved for his sin on behalf of serving a merciful God.The Lord is merciful and anyone who says otherwise is in denial of the sin in this world. I think I often do not take sin as seriously as I should, because when I read the Old Testament in general, I see the lords utter hatred for it.
Application: pray for a greater conviction when I sin.

1 chronicles 11:1-3
Then all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron, saying, Behold, we [are] thy bone and thy flesh. And moreover in time past, even when Saul was king, thou [wast] he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the LORD thy God said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be ruler over my people Israel. Therefore came all the elders of Israel to the king to Hebron; and David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the LORD; and they anointed David king over Israel, according to the word of the LORD by Samuel.

As a young man, I do not imagine David connected his role as a shepherd with preparing him to lead the nation of Israel and become the greatest king the world has ever seen. All David did was be faithful to watch his sheep and faithful to worship The Lord. However insignificant it may have seemed to him at the time, The Lord saw great significance. The Lord took David, a shepherd of sheep, and made him the shepherd of His nation. The Lord was preparing David for what He knew he would be long before anyone else even had a clue. The Lord was faithful to prepare David for what he would one day be because David was faithful to serve The Lord in the present.
Jeremiah 1:4-5
 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, [and] I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

1 Corinthians 2:2
 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Paul was, to say the least, a brilliant theologian. his knowledge of the Old Testament was surpassed by none and his intellectual understanding of The Lord has been challenged only by fools. He was ministered to by Christ Jesus Himself for three years in the Persian wilderness and lived his life as a sacrifice to The Lord. Take that in comparison with myself and if I had any inclination to boast in any amount of scriptural knowledge, that has been cast far away. If we as Christians are here as Jesus' hands and feet what business should we be about other than professing the Gospel which is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? That is what is going to save lives and create disciples. Not some earthly wisdom. It is the cross that has saved me and it should be the cross that I profess without shame.
Application: I would rather not witness than for my motives in doing so to be myself being exalted. It is all for His glory.

1 Corinthians 3:16
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

Those who are Christians have indeed made themselves a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. A dwelling place for a part of the triune Godhead. The Holy Spirit is God and as such, is perfect. He possesses all of the attributes of God and is the part of the Godhead that we interact with most. As He is a person, He has emotions and we indeed have the ability to Greave Him. We can choose to live our lives obeying His convictions, or we can ignore them. Though we may be in disobedience, His presence will never leave us, but it will grow faint to our own perception. We can ignore Him to the point where we no longer feel His disagreement of our sin and thus we backslide in our relationship with Him. This is most definitely not a desired outcome for any genuine Christian and steps must be taken to reverse this process, but how? We are a metaphorical temple of God. Just like the Israelite temples were to be pure and clean, so shall we keep ourselves pure of sin. When we have sinned against God, we shall confess it and it will be no longer a blemish. The Lord will move in and restore all that is lost and we will once again be sensitive to His Spirit.
Application: Confess certain sins and turn from them.

John 8:9
But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

Just before this, these very same men that left one by one weren't about to relent until they had the woman's life. It wasn't that they cared so much about stoning her, more that they wanted to trap Jesus in His own words that they might ruin Him. So first of all, what made these determined men to abandon their campaign? What robbed harsh judgmental hearts of completing the task at hand? Exposure to the light of the world. Jesus is the light of the world and when we interact with Him, He has a way of completely exposing our flaws. These men were ready to stone the woman on account of her sin, but they never seemed to consider their own sin. Thus, when Jesus bent down and was writing whatever He wrote in the sand, the men seeing their own individual sin turned away and left, which is so sad to me.  Why did these men not fall at the feet of Jesus? Jesus was offering forgiveness to the woman, but the men were to proud to fall at the feet of the one man who could take away their sin. They could have had themselves restored that very day, but instead their pride took them over and they were left to wallow in their own shame. Today is the day to ask The Lord for forgiveness of whatever sin you are harboring, not tomorrow. He is both willing and able to forgive the man who is broken by his sin.
in the end, it is us and Jesus. No man will stand with us at the judgment seat and give his opinion, good or bad, of our life. The Lord looks at each person individually and assesses them. He won't care if we had a giant house or not. He won't care if we were married or not. He won't care how much we donated to the poor or even how many missions trips we went on. All He will look upon is the heart. Our heart; the only thing that is completely ours. He will give that a good look and with His perfect balance of grace and justice determine our fate. He will see every good deed we did for our own selfish gain and every good deed we did to glorify His name. Nothing will fool Him. He can't be fooled. I pray that I myself will continue to be broken over my sin so that I may run to Him in true repentance each and every day. The joy and comfort He gives to those who are truly repentant is unlike another feeling. It is better than going surfing on the best day. Better than driving down the highway with the windows down and music playing. It is complete release from selfish thought and complete focus on Him. I am so glad I am promised an eternity with Him.

Application: ask for brokenness and then forgiveness in my daily prayers.  

Psalm 27:14
 Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!

It takes courage to wait. To place my life's outcome into the hands of The Lord is a very courageous thing to do, especially when I have my own wants and desires. I am not saying that I am a particularly courageous man, in fact, I have been proven to be quite the opposite. However, I do see that my only option for a life in close relations with The Lord is to place myself into His hands. To not kick against what He is obviously doing in my life. I must always keep my eyes focused on what The Lord has revealed to me and the place He has me. From this place of contentment, I can serve The Lord with anticipation for the future, but not to the point where I am useless in the present.