The Daily Fountain Devotional of the Church Of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) 18 August 2025
Daily Fountain Devotional 18 August 2025 TOPIC: Preferring Others To Ourselves
SCRIPTURE READING: 2 Samuel 12:24-31(NKJV)
12:24. Then David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in to her and lay with her. So she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. Now the LORD loved him,
12:25. and He sent [word] by the hand of Nathan the prophet: So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the LORD.
12:26. Now Joab fought against Rabbah of the people of Ammon, and took the royal city.
12:27. And Joab sent messengers to David, and said, “I have fought against Rabbah, and I have taken the city’s water [supply.]
12:28. “Now therefore, gather the rest of the people together and encamp against the city and take it, lest I take the city and it be called after my name.”
12:29. So David gathered all the people together and went to Rabbah, fought against it, and took it.
12:30. Then he took their king’s crown from his head. Its weight [was] a talent of gold, with precious stones. And it was [set] on David’s head. Also he brought out the spoil of the city in great abundance.
12:31. And he brought out the people who [were] in it, and put [them to work] with saws and iron picks and iron axes, and made them cross over to the brick works. So he did to all the cities of the people of Ammon. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.
Anglican Daily Fountain Devotional 18 August 2025 – MESSAGE
Joab was the commander of the army of Israel. He was very loyal to David and exercised his duties well except when he disobeyed David and killed Abner who fought for Saul, because he had killed Joab’s younger brother, Asahel (2Sam.2:18-32).
In our text today, Joab fought against Rabbah of the Ammonites and took the royal city. He had the strength and the manpower to finish up the job, yet he sent for David to do so in order for the city to be named after David, and not after him. By this act, Joab demonstrated what St. Paul admonished the Roman Christians to do in Romans 12:10: “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” Joab would not have been wrong if he had completed the victory by himself.
In Philippians 2:1-10, St. Paul uses the life of Christ as an example to admonish Christians to value others above themselves, not looking to their own interests but to the interest of others too. Jesus was exalted by God as a result of this attitude as we can see in the scripture.
PRAYER: Lord, please grant me the humility to value others above myself, Amen.
MEDITATION: God says “I give power to the exhausted and I strengthen the weak. Isaiah 40:29”