Christian Living

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"Then three of the thirty chief men went down at harvest time and came to David at the cave of Adullam. And the troop of Philistines encamped in the Valley of Rephaim. David was then in the stronghold, and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David said with longing, 'Oh, that someone would give me a drink of the water from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!' So the three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines, drew water from the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David. Nevertheless he would not drink it, but poured it out to the LORD. And he said, 'Far be it from me, O LORD, that I should do this! Is this not the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives?' Therefore he would not drink it.
These things were done by the three mighty men." - 2 Samuel 23:13-17

I have done some horrendous things, even by the world's standards. The world has told me that the things I did, I did because of low self-esteem.

Utter garbage! What I had done I had done for myself. I have never had a problem with self-esteem. The sins I committed were done to realize self. This is contrary to the teachings of Christ.

Some days back I wrote an allegory, The King of Cups, where the cups were usable by the King when they were empty. He talked about how He saw a cup full of self as something ludicrous.

Self-esteem is a lie straight from Satan's mouth, saying, "drink or eat this, and you will be like gods." We as Christians have to agree that, as fallen, we are selfish. We worship ourselves. When we say someone has a god, like pornography, or greed or pride, that is the selfish sinful nature. That god is the god of self. We have no problem with self-esteem. One can only worship or love what one esteems.

We must be empty of self, that Christ may reign in us. He was right in saying we can do nothing apart from Him. This includes our efforts to find a mate. We are seeking to fill ourselves, which now seems insane to me. The life of Christ was not one of self-realization but of self-expenditure. When He works in us it is not us working with Him; we are only staying out of the way. Paul realized this (Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6).

Self-realization, self-fulfillment, self-esteem, it is all the same thing-living for self. The best we can actually do for the Lord with self is to crucify it, deny it. When the Philippian letter talks of working out our salvation the work we do is in taking ourself out of the way. Maybe you have noticed as I have, that when we do something we think to be right or good it works to our failure and disappointment. I would suspect when we encountered that we would realize that the Lord had no part in that choice. I believe that is why many relationships fail. It was two people seeking self-realization.

I believe that was where David's heart was when he was given water from Bethlehem's wells, water that was good. He saw himself as unworthy of that water, because his men jeopardized themselves for the sake of their king. Even as the man after God's own heart he was unworthy of a simple blessing and thought it better to pour the water out to the Lord. It seems a greater act of trust in the Lord that he would still be sustained by the Lord on every level, to include the physical need for water. To others it may have seemed a waste to do this, but to David it was the only thing he could do.

I wonder if we often take it upon ourselves to do something forgetting how Jesus jeopardized Himself for us. We longed for a certain cup of water, a good one at that. If we re-examined the choice maybe we would come to the same conclusion David did about his men and that cup of water. Calling myself a Christian I would attend a certain single's fellowship to meet someone in the name of Christ. It never worked, leading me to believe the Lord had nothing to do with that even though He poured me the drink of fellowship with other single Christians. I probably should have poured out that seemingly good cup of water, the pursuit, as David did.

In pouring out that water would we be saying that we trust the Lord to sustain us on every level, to include any kind of self-gratification? He took care of our eternity. Can He take care of our present situation?

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