If you put peace and safety as a higher priority than God, peace and safety is not what you will find. If you put God first, along with love and joy, He also brings you peace and safety.

God allowed King Saul in His servants David’s life to make sure he did not end up like a King Saul. Likewise God allows King Saul into our lives to help us not turn into King Sauls, but to turn into King Davids, and better still into followers of Jesus, who are becoming more and more like Jesus.

If suffering under a King Saul makes us more like Jesus, are we willing to serve under a King Saul?

We should see God as our Messiah, as our sacrifice for sin, as our provider, as our protector, as our covenant keeping, everlasting, loving God.

Repent Be baptized Battle with spiritual enemies and weaknesses. Fight the good fight, sharing the Good News.

Don’t envy the green of somebody else’s yard if you don’t know the water and landscaping bill. Don’t envy someone if you don’t know the test they went through, to get their testimony.

If you don’t know the gory, before the glory, you don’t know the whole story.

Evil spirits and evil people do not fight fair. They don’t think they have to, and so they don’t fight fair.

We want to be ‘possessing Christians’ who possess or walk in and grow in our faith, not ‘professing Christians’ who talk a big game but never grow up, never serve, and never share their faith.

Sharing the faith is inviting. Inviting is sharing your faith.

Those who reject God‘s mercy, ask for His judgment.

Mercy is not getting bad that you deserve. Grace is getting good that you didn’t earn.

13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah. 14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him.

5 And he said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons, and invited them to the sacrifice. 6 So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, “Surely the LORD’s anointed [is] before Him!” 7 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.”

10 Then Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away from Saul’s presence; and he drove the spear into the wall. So David fled and escaped that night. 11 Saul also sent messengers to David’s house to watch him and to kill him in the morning. And Michal, David’s wife, told him, saying, “If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.” 12 So Michal let David down through a window. And he went and fled and escaped. 13 And Michal took an image and laid [it] in the bed, put a cover of goats’ [hair] for his head, and covered [it] with clothes. 14 So when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He [is] sick.” 15 Then Saul sent the messengers [back] to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.” 16 And when the messengers had come in, there was the image in the bed, with a cover of goats’ [hair] for his head. 17 Then Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me like this, and sent my enemy away, so that he has escaped?” And Michal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go! Why should I kill you?’ ”

So David fled and escaped, and went to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and stayed in Naioth.

7 and to [give] you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,

35 “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. 36 “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 37 “For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

For His anger [is but for] a moment, His favor [is for] life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy [comes] in the morning.