A meditation on 1 Chronicles 17
When was the last time you paused to consider a truth Scripture repeats again and again: God has no favourites?
Peter saw it clearly after Cornelius: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34 NKJV). Paul repeats it: “For there is no partiality with God” (Romans 2:11). James lifts up Elijah—fire-from-heaven Elijah—and says he was “a man with a nature like ours” who prayed earnestly and heaven moved (James 5:17). The Psalmist goes further: “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Psalm 145:18). Not some. All.
I felt this truth really resonate with me while meditating on 1 Chronicles 17. David, the man after God’s own heart, speaks to God like a friend. He offers to build Him a house. God turns it round: “You shall not build Me a house… I will build you a house; I will establish your throne forever” (vv. 11-14). The Messiah comes through David’s line—the intimacy had real repercussions; indeed, we all benefit from it!
Yet here is what really struck me: while David had the Spirit come upon him; we have the Spirit dwelling within us, never to leave us. David tasted the shadow; we possess the substance. This is why Paul even says we are already “blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Not just the super saints or apostles; all of us who are in Christ have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing.
If God has no favourites, and if we already possess more than David, what is left? Only faith—bold, expectant faith that refuses to shrink God’s promises down to our experience.
History is full of “ordinary” people who believed this truth and became spiritual giants: an uneducated shoemaker named William Carey who believed God could use him to reach India; a shy Welsh coal miner named Evan Roberts who believed God could revive a nation; a New England pastor named Jonathan Edwards who resolved to let nothing come between God and His purposes lived out through his life. None of them had a special badge from heaven that the rest of us lack. They simply believed that the same God who was near to David, near to Elijah, near to Paul, was near to them—and they acted like it.
The thrilling question: why not you? Why not me? Not because we are impressive, but because God has no favorites. The ceiling is not set by pedigree, personality, or past performance. The ceiling is set only by how seriously we take the truth that the same God who spoke galaxies into existence and raised Jesus from the dead is near to all who call on Him in truth.
May we have the courage to believe it—and to live like it is true.
