Morning By Morning #148

Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king’s table, and he was crippled in both feet.

2 Samuel 9:13

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

Mephibosheth was no great adornment to the royal table, yet he had a permanent seat there because King David could see the features of his beloved Jonathan in his face. And like Mephibosheth, we may cry out to the King of Glory, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?” (2 Sam. 9:8). Yet the Lord still indulges us with the pleasure of His close fellowship because He sees in our countenance the features of His dearly beloved Jesus.

Thus, the Lord’s people are dear to Him for someone else’s sake, for this kind of love is that which the Father bestows on His “one and only Son” (John 3:16). For His Son’s sake He raises His Son’s lowly brothers from poverty and banishment to a place of kingly friendship, noble rank, and royal provision. And their deformity will never rob them of their privileges, for lameness is no barrier to sonship. In fact, a crippled person is as much an heir as though he were “as fleet-footed” (2 Sam. 2:18) as Asahel.

Our right as an heir will never limp, although our might may. The King’s table is a noble hiding place for our lame legs, and at the feasting table of the gospel we learn to “boast…about [our] weaknesses” because “Christ’s power” rests on us (2 Cor. 12:5, 9).

A severe disability, however, may taint the character of even the best-loved saints in many eyes. For example, Mephibosheth feasted with David in spite of the fact he was so crippled in both feet he could not flee with the king when he fled the city. As a result of his inability to flee, he was wrongfully maligned and accused by his servant Ziba. (See 2 Sam. 16:1 – 4.)

In a spiritual sense, saints whose faith is crippled and weak and whose godly knowledge is limited are terrible losers. They are vulnerable to many enemies and cannot follow the King wherever He leads. Their crippling “disease” frequently is the result of falling to sin, which is typically brought about by lack of spiritual nourishment during their infancy as a believer. This often causes converts to fall into a despondency from which they never recover, or in other cases leads to sins resulting in spiritual “broken bones.”

Lord, help “the lame leap like a deer” (Isa. 35:6) and satisfy all Your people with the bread of Your table!

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

In the Scriptures the spiritual life is compared to running a race. Yet we cannot run when spiritually disabled. And when we are handicapped, we are to blame, not the Lord, for He has provided all we need to run the race He has called us to run and never disqualifies us because we were once lame. As Spurgeon says today, sin is what creates our ongoing spiritual lameness, so “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Heb. 12:1).

Yes, God in His sovereignty not only tells us where to run by marking out our particular race but also tells us how to run:

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Cor. 9:24).