3.175 Thou Art the Man

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as Savory Salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

I hope that you have a Nathan-style friend. And I hope after this episode, you can be a Nathan-style friend to your friends as well. We are reading this week 2 Samuel 11 and 12, 1 Kings 3, 6-9 and 11.

A varied reading here as we kind of shift from David's story into Solomon's story. Let's get one more verse inside of David's story before we move on to the Solomon chapters and especially get a dive into the temple being built, which is exciting, but that's coming later. I won't go there today.

Our verse for today comes in 2 Samuel verse 12, which is the second half of David's fall, right? And the consequences of his choices. But Nathan comes into the story here and tells a great parable to David.

And David's listening to this parable and he's like, "Gosh, that guy, man, that guy kind of sounds awful, right? Who's that guy?" And then we get our verse for today in 2 Samuel 12, verse 7. It says, "And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man.

Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul." And you'll notice here that the sentence doesn't end. So continue reading in 8 and continue going 9, 10. It goes for a couple more verses there.

But I wanted to capture this beginning one here because I don't think Nathan's saying, "Thou art the man" in the style that we use it today. This isn't Nathan being like, "Yo, David, you're the man." This is Nathan being able to say, "David, when I gave you that story about the guy..." Now, why do I hope that we all Nathans and that we have Nathan friends in our lives? I think Nathan serves as a very, very important part of David's story here.

He's someone that's going to tell David straight up that he's done something wrong and he's going to call him to repentance. And I have had friends in my life that are blessings in my life because I'm sure I've got more coming as well, but I've got some good failures in my past. And some of my best friends have been able to come and say, "Allen, you got to take accountability here.

What role did you play in the failure?" And I'm like, "What role did I play? Right?" And they've been willing to hold that mirror up, and all of our friends around you that are willing and able to hold you accountable, to call you out, in effect, and say, "Hey, you're doing something wrong here." I want friends like that in my life. They're going to help me be in the places I should be, as we talked about earlier in another podcast episode.

But I also want to be able to be that friend. Someone that is trusted enough that I can also say, "Hey man, that you right now, what are you doing that you shouldn't be doing?" I think accountability is something that's so fascinating, my friends. Because we see it a lot of times negatively.

Thank you for watching. You and I have come here for such a time as this. Step forward in faith, and let's be Savory Salt. We will be here tomorrow, and we hope you are too.