Our Selfish Reasons for a King

This is Part 3 of my articles on kingship.

Part 1 (Principles for a King)
Part 2 (Ignoring the Principles)

Our Selfish Reasons For A King

Israel desired a king for what appears like three reasons. The judges that followed Samuel were corrupt and they wanted someone to rule over them rightly, all the other nations had one, and they wanted someone to fight their battles.

I think those are some of the same reasons we want formal leadership in our religious organizations. We get sick of the wrong decisions being made and feel that if we appoint a leader, then right decisions will be made. We feel that we need to look like all of the other organizations in our culture that are respected. And we don't want to struggle and do things on our own. We want our leaders to make our role as Christians easier to carry.

The thing is that God is willing to do those things for us already. God is at work in our midst without formal leaders. History has shown that having formal leaders brings about just as many - maybe even more - problems than not having them brought. Our structure will not be what gains us respect by those around us; it is faithfulness to God that should do that. If our faithfulness doesn't gain respect, then respect really isn't something that we should care about attaining. When it comes to our own battles, we can be assured that God is willing to make our burden just what we can carry. He states that he will be with us to take care of that burden when it becomes too much. We can trust God to rule over us rightly, to provide the proper structure for us, and to equip us to fight our battles.

God submitted his actions to the will of his people despite that will being wrong. That is an amazing and disturbing thing about God. When His people will something, He will let them attain what they will. He seems to hope that through attaining their wrong desires people's hearts will be transformed into desiring that which God really wants for them.

The people wanted a king. God did not want the people to have any other king besides Himself. In the end, God gave the people the king they wanted. I think the same has happened with the church in America. God has given us all of the wrong things we have desired in the hope that in the end we will desire what God wants us to desire. We are to be God's people under His leadership. We need no middlemen. We need no mammoth organizations that require us to have the leadership structures necessary to run them. We need to be a collection of people fully committed to being the people of God, bringing His will into our reality, and sharing His redeeming light to everyone around us. When we are the people of God all other things will line up into proper perspective.

Part 4 will be next week.