Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the historic one-year lectionary.
2 Samuel 22:26-28 describes God’s personality in a surprising way. He shows himself as merciful with those who are merciful. The blameless see God as blameless. People may well see their positive characteristics in God. It’s what He shows them. We can take encouragement from this idea, because when we are on the right track living the Christian life, God himself shows his pleasure by reinforcing those character qualities.
The tone shifts just a bit in verse 27. With the purified God deals purely. Here we notice that the purity we have is not of our own making or inclination. It is something we receive. The purity of a Christian is not something the Christian does. It is something that the Holy Spirit has placed upon the Christian. Yet in God’s personality it is entirely different. He is pure by nature. He can’t receive purity. But he deals purely. Do we live a life of moral or ethical purity? God, who is pure anyway, makes sure we will receive purity. It doesn’t always happen, but for the most part if we deal well with others they will deal well with us. The husband who is pure and loving with his wife is likely to find himself with a wife who is pure and loving with him. It’s what God does in all his dealings with us, and He makes those dealings easily understandable.
What about with crooked people? God shows himself as tortuous. This is a word we don’t use all that much in English. It means “twisting” or “tangled.” The importance of this statement is that when we try to pull a fast one on God, he is always one or two steps ahead of us. When we try to live by deception, we end up being deceived ourselves. When we try to cheat God we find that we never understood him in the first place.
God is the God who humbles the proud, including those who would try to act crookedly. They will eventually be brought low. But he raises up the humble who are trusting in him. This is to God’s glory, as he works out his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
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