What do you have that you did not receive?

2 Samuel 16:4 The King said to Ziba, “Behold, all that belonged to Mephibosheth us now yours.“David, as King, remembered his friendship with Jonathan and the covenant that he had made not to forget Jonathan’s family when he became King. In 2 Samuel 9:1, King David inquired: “Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, was still alive, though crippled in both feet. David had him brought, and he honored him by restoring all the land that belonged to his grandfather Saul, making Ziba his servant, and having Mephibosheth supp at the King’s table for the rest of his life. But then Absalom conspires against his father David to take the kingdom, and David has to flee. Ziba meets King David and his company on their way with many and various provisions. When King David asks Ziba of Mephibosheth, Ziba answers: “Behold, he remains in Jerusalem, for he said, ‘Today the house of Israel will give me back the kingdom of my father.'” (2 Sam 16:3)We would not outrightly admit it, but many of us do indeed behave and would behave just as Mephibosheth did. We ourselves had been lost, forgotten, defeated, and forsaken; just as Paul writes to Titus: “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,…” (Titus 3:3-5), but then, along the way, we end up forgetting by whose hand it is that we are so favoured, blessed, preserved, and flourished. We begin to despise the Giver of the gifts, imagining that we have obtained all we have— our beautiful and principled wife/girlfriend, our illustrious career, our great wealth— by sheer hard-work, diligence, and by our own personal shrewdness. Like in Jesus’ parable of the tenants, we are not so far from them in their conspiring: ‘But those tenants said to one another, “This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours."’ In these moments when we are carried away by our glory and become arrogant, he who sits in heaven laughs at such foolishness and presumptuousness. God’s lament against Israel in Hosea was that “…she did not know that it was I who gave her grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. Therefore,” he goes on to say, “I will take away my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.” (Hosea 2:8-10) We would also do well to slowly and keenly take in and ponder the words in Hannah’s prayer of thanksgiving after having Samuel:>Talk no more so very proudly, let no arrogance come out of your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed… The Lord kills and brings to life, he brings down to Sheol and raises up, The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash-heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the world are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world. (1 Samuel 2:3, 6-8)Paul was surprised that the Corinthian Church was boasting over gifts that the Holy Spirit had granted, he asked them: “…what do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). I have often found myself in a strait financially, my friends have frequently shown me kindness, and I have often only managed to get through by someone’s help, yet with time, and through the light of God’s word, I have come to the conviction that it was God who gave me all the help, only that he used the hands of men, or rather, mostly unconsciously, these men let themselves be used as the hands of God. It would therefore be foolish and careless of me to put the hope of my future provision in them. I must be properly grateful to them, but even greater gratitude must be to God. When his disciples seemed worried that everyone was now going to be baptized by Jesus and no one was coming to them, John the Baptist taught them, saying: “A person cannot receive even one thing, unless it is given him from heaven” (John 3:27). And when the Pharisees spoke arrogantly spoke of how their fathers ate manna in the wilderness, Jesus corrected them, saying: “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” (John 6:32)If ever we, like Mephibosheth, are granted the undeserved privileged of dining at the King’s table, and indeed we have been by being made heirs of eternal life, when ever we have become so rich in worldly goods and seem in need of nothing, then we ought to watch our treacherous and deceitful hearts. The Lord who took us from being beggars and bastards and made us sons and princes, is able to just as soon divest us of the privilege. Like Abraham, we must pray to have the faith to, even if tremblingly, give back to God the Isaac he gave us; Isaac, the one and only son through whom he promised to make us the father of many nations. And that’s the paradox of God’s Kingdom; we lose what we clamour fitfully to keep, and we keep that which we gladly give away.Dear Mephibosheth, it isn’t the house of Israel that gives men or takes from them the kingdom, it is God. Because of Mephibosheth’s presumptuousness, Ziba who had been Mephibosheth’s servant until then, David now honoured, granting him and putting him over all that Mephibosheth owned, a very good case in point from Proverbs 17:2, a servant who deals wisely will rule over a son who acts shamefully and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers.Prayer Dear Lord, thank you for granting us everything that we need for life and godliness. Thank you for every blessing and provision, both spiritual and material. Grant that by your mercy and grace, we would not become arrogant as to despise your hand that gives every good and perfect gift, and freely gives us everything to enjoy. Amen.