Respectable and honourable God

There are many characters of God and all of them are mind-blowing and deserve a special study. Yet today, I would like to talk about the honour and respect that God displays towards Himself and towards others. It is that respect and honour that makes God stick to His words; it is that respect and honour that makes God incapable of denying Himself (2 Timothy 2:3). I wonder if that is why we are told in the bible to perform our vows to God because He takes seriously what is being told Him just as He takes seriously what He tells us (Deuteronomy 23:23). His word is true and He stands by what He says. The bible is filled with examples of people breaking their covenants with God and reaping the consequences of it because God stands by who He is. Recently, I was struck by this reality again while reading in 2 Samuel the story of the Gibeonites.

During the reign of Saul as a king, in his zeal, we are told that he killed the men of Gibeon which was a foreign nation living in the land God had promised to the Israelites. However, the men of Gibeon had entered into a covenant with the people of Israel and Israel had promised not to kill them (Joshua 9). If you recall their story in the time of Joshua, the men of Gibeon used ruse towards the Israelites in order for their lives to be spared. Indeed, they had seen what Joshua and his men did to Jericho and the nation of Ai, and came disguised to the men of Israel as a people coming from a foreign land not part of the Promised Land. Joshua and the men of Israel fell for the Gibeonite’s ruse because they did not seek the Lord in the matter, they made a covenant with the Gibeonites and later realised the people they had made a covenant with was a nation they were meant to destroy. What is striking here is that God agreed with the covenant they made and whoever was to break it was going to reap the consequences. Fast forward years and centuries later, the covenant still stood. Unfortunately, Saul, apparently forgot this important part about the people of Gibeon and killed them in his zeal (2 Samuel 21:2). The consequence of breaking this covenant was that during the reign of David, there was a three years famine in the land of Israel. It was out of nowhere and consistent. David, being a man of God knew this famine was not natural anymore, he knew it had to be the product of some sin committed. I pray we too can learn to be discerning and sensitive to what happens in our lives so that like David we can know when God is behind something and when it is our sin. God revealed to David that the famine was because Saul broke the covenant made with the Gibeonites. Remember, this is an enemy nation, a nation that God himself had planned on wiping out of the Promised Land, yet, He stood by the covenant that was made. Therefore, God respects the rules we put for ourselves just as He respects the rules He puts for Himself. God takes us just as we are that is why part of His plan is to change us so that we are aligned with His will because He will never come and break whatever covenant you set for yourself or enter in. This level of respect and honour is beyond understanding to me and I am honestly awestruck. David had to seek reparations to the Gibeonites before the famine could cease.

Similarly, during the reign of Saul as king, he fought constantly with the Philistines and in one such battle, he made a declaration that no man should eat anything until he is avenged from his enemies (1 Samuel 14:24). Unfortunately, Saul made this decree without caring about his men that were already tired and hungry from the battle. In fact, the bible tells us that this statement brought distress on his men. Jonathan, Saul’s son had not heard of the oath his father had made and so when he marched with the army into the woods, he saw honey and ate it. This act was a direct disobedience to what Jonathan’s father had decreed and God noted that. You see, it does not matter that Jonathan was not aware, he broke a law and he needed to be punished for it. As a matter of fact, Jonathan had just given victory to Israel by defeating the Philistines with his armour bearer yet God did not think he should be spared from this fault he committed. This is simply because God respects Himself very much and He respects others. What you have set out as rules, He will adhere by it. No wonder the bible tells us that we will be accountable for every careless word we have spoken because God takes us at our words (Matthew 12:36).

You might be reading this and think to yourself that God is quite harsh with no feelings but you would be wrong to think this way because feelings have nothing to do with it. God is simply respecting the established laws just as He desires for us to respect His own laws. Even to bring salvation to us, God had to come as a man because only a man could atone for man’s sins. God could have saved us in many different ways but He chose to come as a man because He made the world a certain way, certain jurisdictions only applied to earth and not heaven so God was not about to violate the rules He Himself had established. Indeed, God is perfect in all that He does and there is no sin in Him. He is our example in everything, the one we look to for everything, we are called to imitate Him so there is no way He will start acting in a manner that is contrary to Who He is. I pray the Lord gives us understanding to this aspect of His character so that we would be more careful as to how we approach His words and how we treat each other. Amen.