This Overlooked Reason Made David A Man After God’s Heart

After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’ – Acts 13:22

A Man After God’s Own Heart

There has been much study done on the life of David. He had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba and had her husband, Urriah, killed. While these are not actions of someone we would want to be friends with, God gives him one of His highest compliments, a man after God’s own heart.

We know that David fasted and repented of the sins mentioned above. He spend time developing a deep relationship with God, writing most of the Book of Psalms which highlights God’s unfailing love. He developed a community of worshippers that sang and played music around God’s presence, the ark of the covenant.

What Have We Overlooked About David?

All of these things are common proofs for David’s heart for God. The one thing we often forget about God is that there are two commands that are our guide to following God: 1. Love God, AND 2. Love Others. If David was a man after God’s own heart, he would also have to have a love of others.

We know that David loved Jonathan. This is an incredible story of friendship, but it doesn’t prove that David had a love for others.

David refused to kill Saul, even though Saul was trying to kill him. This is noble, but it also doesn’t show David loved others.

How Did David Show His Love of Others?

However, when David was running from Saul, all those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their commander. About four hundred men were with him (1 Samuel 22:2).

Here David is in one of his most trying times. The king and his army is looking to kill him. He is literally running for his life, and he decides to take in 400 men who were general outcasts in other places. And, the best part is that not only did David let them hang around, he turned many of them into his mighty men.

God Never Gives Up On Us

This is how God treats each of us. We may feel like outcasts and like nobody would want us around. But, God always sees the good in us. He knows who we are capable of becoming. One of the reasons we are to love others is that God wants us to call people into who they were created to be.

David had 400 men come around him that nobody else saw anything good in them. David didn’t just give them a place to stay, He made them into more productive and more amazing men.

God loves that we love Him, but if we are not growing in our love for others by spending time with Him, we are missing something. If David only loved God and not others, he would have stayed in the wilderness watching sheep. Instead, he left his comforts and lived dangerously, and he called me to life through his actions. Let our love for God motivate us to also call to life those around us.