Matins Devotion: August 14, 2026

2 Samuel 1:1-27

If you’ve ever struggled to love those who have hated you, there’s a very valuable and simple lesson that King David gives us. How does David keep loving Saul, the mad king, who spends years trying to murder him? How does he find the strength to defend the honor of Saul and give him justice when all Saul wanted was to give David the opposite? Throughout the war, and again in our text for today, David gives us the answer. Despite having multiple opportunities to kill Saul, and despite having the chance to rejoice in Saul’s death at the hands of this young Amelikite, David refuses to do so because David still loves Saul. He doesn’t believe that he, or anyone else, has the right to, as he puts it, “put out his hand against the Lord’s anointed.” In other words, David preserves his love for his enemy by viewing him not according to his behavior, but according to his office.

So Saul may have been a faithless king. But God still made him a king and David will view him according to that office. David doesn’t view Saul as the man who failed in his duties, but as the man to whom God gave those duties. David refuses to see Saul according to his sins, but according to his holy vocation.

And this is how you can forgive those who have sinned against you. When your children hurt you, when they turn away from you and burn with unjust anger at you, don’t see them according to their sin, but according to the holy vocation of “child” that God gave them. When your friends, your employers, your pastors, your neighbors do things that hurt you, don’t see them as the ones who spit foolishness or inattentiveness or indifference at you. See them as those occupying holy offices that God gave to them.

And you can do this because, when you were a wicked sinner, rebelling against your God, God didn’t see you according to your sins, but according to your vocation, your office, according to the very purpose of your creation. You were created to be God’s own child forever. You were created to be His precious son redeemed by His blood. And so, when you, like Saul, deserved to have the final breath extracted from your lungs, Jesus saw you according to your created purpose and not according to your evil. He saw you as what you were supposed to be, not what you became in your corruption. So He gave up His own final breath to kill your sins, to wash you clean in His blood, and to give you eternal life with Him. And because of this, when He lifts you from the grave on the last day, you will no longer be a failure in your most important vocation. You will be an eternally faithful child of God.