July 10, 2025
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in 1 Samuel and Mark? Here’s today’s reading:
1 Samuel 16 (NIV)
Samuel Anoints David
1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”
2 But Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.”…..Continue Reading
1 Samuel 16
How can you not love this account and what it says about God? And also how it reenforces Jesus’ teaching about the heart? How often we judge on outward appearances. The world is obsessed with looks and sex appeal. But what is in the heart is a far better litmus test for how much we value and appreciate someone. This is also how the least one becomes the greatest. The one who is not even invited to the line up is the one who is anointed king. The one disregarded by others, the one without the credentials, that is the one God uses. A good message for all us misfits. And isn’t it neat how God puts it together that David plays in Saul’s service and God gives Saul an evil spirit so he would need a guy like David to play for him? I love the picture of the Holy Spirit in David flowing through his music drives out the evil spirit in Saul. And yes, God does have the ability to command evil spirits and have them do His bidding in rare circumstances.
When God chose Saul, it was a result of the people rejecting HIM as their king and wanting a human king like all the nations. So, God gave them the kind of king that they wanted. Saul was handsome and was taller than any other man in Israel. But how was his heart? He seemed find to the human eye, but God knew his heart. Even though he may have started right, God knew the future and what Saul would become. Still Saul could have repented and turned back to God. But he didn`t. How is our heart with God? Then God chooses a man after HIS own heart. This man was David. He was the youngest son of Jessie. Others may have looked more like a king, but God chose David because he loved the Lord with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. David knew the Lord would be with him no matter where he was and would help him. He only needed to ask the Lord for help. How did he know this? By trusting and seeing the Lord work when he fought a lion and a bear to protect the sheep. Probably many more interactions that we don`t know about. Answers to prayer, etc. God knew that David even though he wasn`t perfect still would come back to Him after sinning. David was in constant fellowship with God and when he sinned, he would come back to God. He didn`t however take God for granted but would come to Him in true repentance. Sometimes he had to be rebuked like when Nathan the prophet spoke to him, but he always came back to God. May we as believers always seek His fellowship and worship Him.
So cool to be able to read this chapter and see the obvious orchestration of God’s plan but I bet to be there at the time it just looked like random circumstance that brought David into Saul’s house. David was the young one, not even invited to the table and yet God knew his heart and was sure Samuel found him. God doesn’t care about our outward appearance but He does care about our heart and that is obvious here. After being annointed by Samuel, David just went back to tending his sheep and waited on the Lord and a door certainly opended by God’s working. God’s protection was off of Saul at this point and so allowing this evil spirit to come over him requiring the musical skill of David to come in and help.
1Samuel 16
”But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!”“
I Samuel 16:7, 12
It’s funny, God tells Samuel not to assess by outward appearance, but when he sees David he says he is “good looking”!
Another interesting thing, David receives the Spirit upon being anointed and the Spirit leaves Saul and is replaced with a distressing spirit. From that point the the Spirit in David soothes Saul and drives away his distressed spirit.
1 Samuel 16