1 Samuel 20 Devotional
by Pastor Lawrence

            As God had promised back in the Garden of Eden, the seed of the serpent would continue to strike at the heel of the seed of the woman, so King Saul is maneuvering to strike David, God’s anointed one.  Even though he supposedly repented of his actions previously against David, his pride will not allow him to accept that David would replace him as king nor that he would receive greater honor than he.  So in God’s good providence, David is on the run, and this places Jonathan in a precarious situation.  Jonathan is the rightful heir to the throne and a loyal and obedient son to his father, but by faith he has entered into a covenant with David and sworn to protect him from his father.  He also believes that David is the Lord’s anointed and is willing that he should ascend the throne before him.  So Jonathan has competing loyalties at play and he must choose between them, which certainly would have been difficult and heart wrenching for him, but in the end, he chose his father’s ire over disloyalty to David and to God.

           As Jesus said in Luke 12:51-53 “Do you think I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”  It cannot be stressed enough that when we choose to identify ourselves with the Lord, we also identify ourselves with his people, even if that means that our own friends and family members turn against us in anger.  This sort of conflict is inevitable when Satan loses subjects from his kingdom.  Even though the rest of his subjects may not fully know what they are doing, they are now at odds with the Lord’s people because they are at odds with the Lord’s anointed.  But as painful as it may be for us, we cling to the friend who sticks closer than a brother, and we cling to the promises of God and the people of God, for therein lies our future, no matter how sweet our past.