A MAN AFTER GOD’S HEART

Even as a boy David knew the power and protection of God. Grown men cowered at the sight of Goliath, the giant, but not David. He took on the giant with nothing but a slingshot in his hand and brought him down. He faced lions with his bare hands and bears with nothing but a spear. God took a small, insignificant country boy, a shepherd, and turned him into a mighty warrior-king!

No ruler had the kind of love and respect that David enjoyed. The people adored him, his servants obeyed him without question, his wives fulfilled his every need and desire. What man has ever lived in such blessing, such favor, such grace and approval from the Creator?

Yet all of that paled in comparison to his relationship with God. He loved God with a passion and worshiped Him with abandon. Even in the midst of his many duties, David spent hour after hour writing songs and poems to God, singing to Him from his heart, courting the Creator of the universe as one lover courts another. All the gold and silver and riches in the world meant nothing to David compared to his relationship with God. That was the secret to his power. That was what made David such an awesome ruler and king.

David knew without any reservation that he could no nothing without God. He knew that God provided the strength in his bones, the blood in his veins, the wisdom in his mind, and the courage in his heart.

“It is God who arms me with strength,” wrote David, “and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me your shield of victory; you stoop down to make me great. You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn. I pursued my enemies and crushed them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed. I crushed them completely, and they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet. You armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet” (2 Samuel 22:33-40, NIV).

Nicky Cruz, internationally known evangelist and prolific author, turned to Jesus Christ from a life of violence and crime after meeting David Wilkerson in New York City in 1958. The story of his dramatic conversion was told first in The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson and then later in his own best-selling book Run, Baby, Run.