RESULTADOS

Nehemiah 12:23 references “the book of the chronicles.” This is a reference Ezra added after he later wrote Chronicles in order to further link these two books.

Now notice the next verse: “And the chief of the Levites … with their brethren over against them, to praise and to give thanks, according to the commandment of David the man of God …”

(verse 24).

David continually praised and thanked God! He said, We must always be praising God and thanking God for everything He gives us. That reflects very spiritual thinking. The fact that David praised and thanked God so much shows strongly that he was a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22).

A man after God’s own heart builds his life around praising and thanking God! When you praise and thank God continually, do you realize how converted that makes you? Just thinking normally, you won’t continually thank and praise God; it is not a natural way to think. But if we are to be men and women after God’s own heart, we must think in a way that is very unnatural!

Think about how unnatural it is to do what David did. He was not a natural-minded man. He was a man after God’s own heart. He

THE NEW THRONE OF DAVID

wanted to think and act like God in every way. And the better he knew God, the more he praised Him.

That is being God-centered! What problems we have when we are self-centered. If you are wrapped up in self, you just cannot be a man after God’s own heart. God is wrapped up in His Family.

David could command huge choirs of people, and he commanded praising and thanking God. That is straightforward instruction. But you cannot legislate the way people think. This is where character comes in. Each individual must make his own decisions and master his own thoughts.

Still, David used his authority to be sure that praise and thanks for God were emanating from Israel—because that is the way David believed and thought! He had thousands of people performing in choirs that just praised and thanked God!

Everybody had to be involved and learning how to praise and thank God! He commanded it, and Ezra used that example over and over again. These Jews really studied into the way David did things and sought to emulate him. They wanted to replicate his example.

“And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel” (Ezra 3:10). These Jews followed David’s ordinances and his example in praising God.

They didn’t have the throne of David, yet they emphasized his example. By following David’s ordinances, the Jews of Ezra’s day were learning about God to a letter-of-the-law extent—but this is really for us today. The fact that Ezra-Nehemiah references David continually is further proof that this book, like Chronicles, is for the pcg specifically.

We are here to learn to praise and thank God as a way of life! We are not just to sing praise and give thanks occasionally.

David didn’t want the choirs to just sing about it: He wanted it in their minds and in their hearts. Praising and thanking God is a God-centered way of life!

EzRA AND THE NEW THRONE

David really institutionalized praising God and giving thanks to God! This is something we need to examine more closely. We need to be thanking God for the tremendous honor of having David’s throne! This is the most precious, inspiring change we have ever had in this Church—so we must be very thankful for it.

This does not mean that you should walk around singing and spouting off all the time in song. It is about really praising and thanking God in your mind, your belief, and in your faith. David wanted us to think this way! It shows a depth of conversion we all need to work on and improve on. Do you honestly praise and thank God enough? I certainly don’t. We all need to grow in this.

David asked, Who am I to even be able to give to God?

(1 Chronicles 29:14). This is the attitude God wants from us. He wants us to thank Him for the understanding and the opportu-nity to be a part of His Work. He wants us to thank Him that we can be His sons and daughters and He can be our Father. We in the firstfruits calling have the opportunity to sit on the throne of David at headquarters forever! What a reward! Who are we to be given such an honor and such blessings?

There are countless things we can thank God for. If you really know God, you will be thanking Him for just being called! Yes, we are tried and tested, but thank God for that, too! Those trials are more precious than gold! It is easy to carnally reason that we shouldn’t have to suffer in that way. But if we are deeply spiritual like David, we will be praising and thanking God always—even for our fiery trials! This is how you become a man or woman after God’s own heart.

These are two of the great building blocks to show how David was a man after God’s own heart. These two doctrines—

praising and thanking God—are at the heart and core of being God-centered. If we all follow in David’s footsteps in this way, this thinking will fill our lives! We praise Him in our minds and in the way we think. We thank Him for every trial, test or problem because He is doing what is necessary to put us on David’s throne

THE NEW THRONE OF DAVID

for all eternity! That is what this is all about! This is the love of God! God is love, so He cannot do anything but love you. David understood that. He sinned, but he really repented and turned his life around and became a man after God’s own heart. He wanted to rid himself of every speck of human nature, and fill his heart and mind with God! And God was really impressed by that! He made David king over all of Israel. What an honor for a sinful but repentant man!

We have David’s throne, and we need to fill God’s house with praising God and thanking God. Even more, we need to think this way and love God the way David did.

We must have the Spirit of God to understand this. When Solomon was crowned, he was taken to the Gihon Spring (1 Kings 1:38-39), whose waters were a type of the very Spirit of God. Like those waters, God’s Spirit must be flowing in our lives.

This is how we think like David and become God-centered. There is no other way to praise and thank God except through the Spirit of God. Even Christ said He could do nothing of Himself (John 5:30). The Spirit of the Father gave Him all that power.