Thinking about loyalty today. In the book of 2 Samuel there is a man by the name of Ittai the Gittite who shows a great deal of loyalty to King David. David has been alerted that his son Absalom is leading an rebellion and is fleeing the city of Jerusalem. While leaving, Ittai, a foreigner in the land of Israel, declares that he will go with David although he had just arrived the day before. His reasoning was this "As the LORD lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will your servant be." Ittai and his people had found refuge with David and would not just turn and run because things were getting a little messy. He and his people left with David and later were influential in the military campaign to defeat Absalom. I am thinking a lot these days of how loyalty should be expressed in our context today. By His grace I pray that I am loyal to my God, his church, and my family - but how far out should loyalty go. There is a proverbial saying that we can become loyal to a fault - the question is where that line lies. Someone with no loyalties most likely has no spine, and we know that loyalty can at times be a great virtue. So what do we mean to when one is loyal to a fault. I think what we mean is that sometimes loyalty can be a blinding factor to higher principles of the moral law. If our loyalty to a person, an organization, institution, party, tribe etc. begins to hinder our ability to see what is good, right and true, our loyalty is leading us towards the enemy's ground. So it seems to me that the highest loyalty must find itself in God and his Word. This fountain of truth and goodness, the nature of God and the Word of God must be our eyes to see past even our loyalties...when God is honored, high loyalty between men is a high virtue, when the moral law of God is neglected, we can become loyal to a fault. Story in 2 Sam 15-18 Bible Gateway : 2SAM 15;

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