When God Chooses a Man

“Now the Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have selected a king for Myself among his sons.”  1 Samuel 16:1

“So Samuel did what the Lord said, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the city came trembling to meet him and said, ‘Do you come in peace?’ He said, ‘In peace; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.’ He also consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

When they entered, he looked at Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed is before Him.’ But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’” 
1 Samuel 16:4-7

How many times have you caught yourself playing the role of “the cross-eyed usher” (James 2:1-4)? It seems it is our nature to prefer those who have and avoided those who have not. Yet it’s plain from the Scriptures that God has a different code of ethics which He intends for His children to follow. Christ’s teachings to the multitudes and to the select twelve often clashed with the accepted thought of that day. His teaching was hard to understand - and harder to follow.

God sees deeper into a man or woman than those around them can or do. Can you tell just by looking at their outward appearance which one out of a hundred will compose a piece like Handel’s Messiah or play the piano like Dino or discover so many practical uses for the common peanut as George Washington Carver or invest their productive years helping people in a third world country to better their lives and draw them to the love of Jesus?

Seek to look beyond the mask others wear and, by God’s help, discover the potential which may hide there. Who knows? You may make a wonderful discovery when looking at the heart.

“What you see is what you get”? Not necessarily.