All you had to do was tell the truth

Continuing our story of David.

A single lie, told at the worst possible moment, can change everything. We open the new year by returning to David’s story at a pivotal scene: Saul has fallen, grief hangs in the air, and an Amalekite arrives with a crown and a tale he thinks will earn him favor. David’s response is swift and sobering, not because of politics but because of reverence for the Lord’s anointed. The lesson lands hard: shortcuts that betray truth don’t just fail; they undo us.

We talk about how deception multiplies consequences, drains trust, and erodes teams, while integrity though costly up front, creates safety, clarity, and consistent leadership. 

If you’re navigating pressure, tempted to spin the story, or weary from waiting, this conversation offers a clear path to tell the truth, guard your witness, and praise before the provision arrives.

If this resonated, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find the message.

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Podcast Music by: prazkhanal
Song: Whip

Chapters

• 0:00 New Year And Series Setup
• 1:05 Why David’s Story Still Matters
• 2:17 Saul’s Fall And David’s Rise
• 4:10 The Amalekite’s Lie And Its Cost
• 6:10 A Retail Lesson On Integrity
• 9:20 Scripture On Truth And Our Witness
• 11:40 Prayer And Closing Encouragement
• 13:25 Bonus: Praise Before Provision

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello, hello. You're listening to the Jesse Morgan Devotions for the Christian Heart Podcast, episode 93. Happy New Year, Happy 2026. This week's devotional is titled, All You Had to Do Was Tell the Truth. Let's go. Hi, I'm Jesse Morgan. I used to just share home decor and renovation tips on social media, but now I'm sharing something even closer to my heart. My journey in love for Jesus Christ, my savior. Welcome to the Jesse Morgan Devotions for the Christian Hawk Podcast. This is a weekly devotional I started back in May 2024, but the inspiration for it came much earlier. It was rooted in a faith journey that began when my daughter was born four months early in 2023. Through that challenging time, God worked in ways that truly amazed me. On this podcast, I share personal stories of faith woven together with Scripture to show just how incredible God's word can be in our everyday lives. My hope is that through these stories, you'll be encouraged, uplifted, and reminded of God's love and presence, no matter what you're going through. So I invite you to spend less than 15 minutes with me each week as we reflect on these devotionals together. Let's all pray within. Episode 93. All you had to do was tell the truth. Continuing our store, our study of David. Key passage, 1 Samuel 31, 2nd Samuel 1. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Happy 2026. I am so excited to be back, missed you guys. Um, we're picking up right where we left off. I took a poll on some of my social media accounts and everybody voted that they wanted to continue David. So here we are. We left off in November. I'm just really excited to continue this journey together as we study the life of David. If you've been following along, you know that throughout the second half of 2025, we spent a lot of time walking through David's story and the first kingships of Israel. And if you're new here, you can absolutely go back several episodes back from like November, October, and start from the beginning. When we began in 1 Samuel, I'm going to give you a little summary, so bear with me here, but just to refresh, you know. So we began in 1 Samuel looking at the end of the period of judges. Samuel, the prophet, is often considered the last judge of Israel. Israel demands a king, and Saul becomes the first anointed king of Israel. Unfortunately, Saul fails miserably over time. He fears people more than he fears God. He disobeys, God repeatedly makes decisions, God never approved of, and eventually God rejects him as king. And that's when David enters the story. David is a mighty warrior, most famously defeating Goliath, and before that, he was herding sheep. And but more than that, even he is a man of deep faith. He trusts God completely. David becomes a respected soldier, a loyal servant to Saul, and someone who genuinely honors Saul as king. He also forms a deep a deep, deep covenant of friendship with Saul's son Jonathan. They vow to protect one another no matter what. But as Saul's disobedience continues, God makes it clear that David is the only one he has chosen to be the next king. Saul knows this, and instead of repenting, he becomes more consumed with jealousy. That jealousy turns into rage, and Saul begins plotting to kill David. So David spends years on the run, confused, heartbroken, and innocent of the accusations against him. And during this time, David struggles. He falls into despair at moments, makes decisions he probably shouldn't have, but even then he never stops fighting for God's people. He continues protecting Israel from their enemies, especially the Philistines. Eventually, Saul goes into battle against the Philistines, and the battle goes terribly wrong. And that's where we're going to pick up today. Jonathan and two of his and two of Saul's other sons were killed. Saul sees that defeat and it's inevitable. And in depression and in desperation, he falls on his own sword and takes his own life. This closes out 1 Samuel 31, and it's deeply, deeply tragic chapter, and we're going to be touching on that in the next chapter. The Philistines, um, to continue to finish out this story in um chapter 31 of 1 Samuel, the Philistines find Saul's body and the bodies of his sons. They strip Saul of his armor, behead him, and they pin their bodies to the wall as public humiliation. They probably they proclaim victory to their false gods. And meanwhile, David is still on the run. He has just defeated the Amekites to protect his people, and he still believes Saul wants him dead. So now we turn to 2 Samuel, which focuses on David's journey of becoming king. And in chapter 1, this is right after Saul dies, an Amekite man comes to David with torn clothes and dust in his head, a sign of mourning. David asks him who he is and what has happened. And the man tells David that Saul and Jonathan are dead. David presses him, How do you know this? The man claims he saw Saul wounded on Mount Gilboa, forgive me if that's wrong, still alive, asking him to kill him before the Philistines could capture him. He says he agreed, killed Saul, removed Saul's crown and armband, and brought it to David. At first, David and his men mourned deeply. They tore their clothes and they grieved Saul and Jonathan and the others. But later, David asked the man again who he is. When the man says he's an Amekite, David responds sharply. Who do you think you are? That you dare lift your hand against the Lord's anointed. And David had him executed. At first glance, this moment can feel a bit shocking. But here's what's important. David believes the man's story. David doesn't yet know he was lying. And maybe he never knew, actually, after all. But if we look back in 1 Samuel 31, um, this is why I mentioned that chapter before, we know, and it says in scripture, that Saul actually killed himself. His own armbearer refused to kill him, so Saul fell on his own sword. And the Amekite, that Amekite clearly fabricated the story because he thought he would be rewarded for bringing Saul's crown to David. But instead, his lie cost him his life. David himself had twice, remember this, guys. If you don't remember, we you know, some chapters back in 1 Samuel, David had twice the o had twice the opportunity to kill Saul. Both times he refused, saying, I will not touch the Lord's anointed. So when this man claims he did exactly that, David sees it as a grave offense against God. If the Amekite had simply told the truth that Saul was dead, he likely would have lived. But his desire for personal gain led him to lie, and that lie sealed his consequence. In 2 Samuel chapter 1, it ends with David composing a beautiful lament to honor Saul and Jonathan, a beautiful song per se, a song of grief, respect, and humility. And that brings me to a story that has always reminded me of this exact lesson. I'm gonna bring it to you now. I'm gonna connect the dots. Hang in there with me. I remember this clearly from my retail days at Macy's. We're gonna go back to that today. I worked at Miami Daydeland store, and at the time I was a director or uh assistant store manager. I was over Women's Clothing, which at Daydeland was a huge business, two full floors, one of the top women's clothing businesses in the entire company. And before that role, I had been running cosmetics and fragrances. That business was strong and one of the biggest ones in the company as well. And I was doing really well there, but our district vice president personally asked me to move into women's clothing because of my merchandising background. It was a challenging assignment, but I accepted it. Before I officially stepped into the role, the leadership uh told me about a department manager who had been there for 20 years. She was known as a problem, and over time she had learned how to work the system, taking leaves of absences, coming back, waiting for leadership changes, and getting write-ups dismissed, and also just creating her own complaints and making other managers look bad. The expectation was clear. Coach her out. But I told leadership something different. I said, I want to try to coach her up first. I sat down with her, addressed prior documentation that was still in her file, and told her I wanted to start fresh. At first, things looked promising. She hit her sales goals, she helped cover ships. It seemed like maybe this could work. But then the patterns started to show. Missing coaching documentations, excuses during business walkthroughs, apologies, but no consistency. And then came the moment that changed everything for me. One morning she was responsible for opening the store. During that critical opening window, she told one of my merchandise managers she was running to the bathroom and asked her to watch the floor. Thirty minutes went by. There was a customer that needed help, there was an associate not in their area, all these things went wrong. She never came back. Later, it came out that she had gone to Chick-fil-A in the food court to get breakfast. The receipt, the bag, the timing, all of it was there in the trash can where we could see. When I confronted her, she lied straight to my face. She told me she was helping a customer, she had no idea I already knew the truth. And I remember thinking, all you had to do was tell the truth. I wrote her up, not just for leaving the floor, but for lying. Within days she went on a leave of absence, and eventually within a month, she realized I was still going to be in this role, and she resigned. And honestly, it was the best outcome for everyone involved. She had become complacent, she believed she could keep getting away with things, she also tried to tell on other managers in the midst of her lie. But arrogance and dishonesty always catches up with us. Her downfall wasn't Chick-fil-A, it was the lie. And that's exactly what we see in Scripture. The Amekite didn't lose his life because Saul was dead. And because he tried to gain something that was never his to take. Lies don't just distort truth, they multiply your issues and consequences. Scripture puts it plainly. In Proverbs 12, 22, it says, lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight. God cares deeply about integrity. He sees our actions, our motives, our hearts. And in the end, truth always comes to light. And just remember, going into 2026, try to hold up that integrity. And as Christians, when we showcase that integrity, that makes people want to get to know us when they get to know our God. So ask yourself this question: Are we representing God properly? Are we showing the integrity that the Bible and God deserves? Think about it. Let's pray. Lord, help us to be people of truth. Forgive us for choosing shortcuts instead of the obedience that's needed. Give us the courage, Lord, to walk in integrity, even when it's uncomfortable or it's costly. May our words and our lives bring you delight. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Love you all. Till next time. Well, that wraps up this week's episode. I hope these devotions help you draw closer to God each day. If this episode encouraged you, please share it with someone who might need the same message. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a weekly episode. Also, if you feek if you feel compelled, leaving a nice review would be so appreciated as well. For more information or to reach out, check the show notes or visit jessymorganhome.com or find me on Instagram at Jessie MorganLife. Remember, God's timing is always perfect. Keep trusting him. Until next time, this is Jesse Morgan praying off. Jesse Morgan Devotions behind the scenes starting right now. And uh another year of this podcast. It's insane. It will be two years in May, which is crazy to think. And by that point, I would have uh surpassed a hundred episodes. So I'm just really grateful to it. And I hope that if it can inspire or, you know, comfort somebody in need with this podcast, that's exactly what it's about. So I just want to say thank you to that. Another thing, um, I just wanted to sh share a little bit. I have been um for 2026, I really, you know, thought about what I want to do differently. And something that I have really tried in the last couple of weeks, and it has just been such a blessing for me, is I have decided that, you know, I've said it before, but I'm really trying to live by it this time, is when you are going through a trial and it's just difficult. And the first thing we always do as Christians or people, we immediately get on our knees and we say, God, please help us. And then we repeat the prayer over and over and over again, saying, God, please, please, God, help us, please let me get this job, please let me help this, let me help my child, like whatever it is. And I've realized, and I've said it before, but I really thought about it, is when you ask God for the same thing over and over and over again, it's a little bit of like insanity, a little bit, and it's really not showing that you have faith. Because when you ask God for something, you have to say, Lord, I want this new job, and I'm gonna get a ten thousand dollar increase, Lord. And I thank you, God, because you're gonna provide it for me. I pray that this works out, Lord, in Jesus' name. And then after that, every day you sit there and you say, Lord, thank you for the blessing that's gonna come. Thank you for this job that's gonna come, thank you for the$10,000 that's going to come with that job and with that pay increase. Thank you, Lord. And every day you go back and say, Lord, thank you for this job that's coming. Thank you for your glory. Thank you for the love and and the path that you're gonna bring me. I'm gonna have this amazing job, Lord. Thank you, Lord. It's all about praising him. And when you praise God for the blessing that's gonna come, you praise him in advance, that shows such faith, guys. And that's when God really works. That's when your spirit grows, that's when you grow. And I've realized that. And let me tell you, when I pray like that and when I praise God like that, I feel better. I feel more optimistic, everything. And that was the mindset I had to have when I had my daughter in the hospital. That's the mindset I had to have when we went through some financial issues this past year. And I'm actually going through something right now, not financial, but something tough that's going on. But we are okay because God is going to provide. Thank you, God, for providing for us. And he is slowly doing it. And I think when you praise him like that, every little miracle or blessing that happens in the midst of it, you're more grateful for. So I encourage you this year, you pray for what you want once and you praise God constantly, knowing that it's going to happen. When you praise in advance, when you praise God and you know that it's gonna happen in advance, it will happen even better than you can imagine. And little things will add up to that big blessing that you're gonna have. So I encourage you going into 2026, pray for what you want and praise God that it's coming. Don't keep praying for the same thing over and over and over and over again. That kind of comes off as an insult because why are you keep asking for the same thing? If you're gonna ask, you know, somebody, I ask my mom, hey, mom, I want a new ring. Okay, Jess, we'll get you a new ring. And then every day I go to her and I say, Mom, I want a new ring, mom, I want a new ring, want to, mom, I want a new ring. Is that not gonna be annoying? Versus saying, Mom, thank you so much for the ring you're gonna get me. I really appreciate it. Mom, I know when the time is there and and and you can do it, thank you so much for getting the ring. She will accept that probably better than asking her every day for the same ring. So going to 2026, pray once, praise God multiple times that it's gonna come. Love you all. Till next time.