Lessons from David

After re-reading 1st and 2nd Samuel I come to this awesome story that I had forgotten about. 2 Samuel chapter 9. It's the story of David and Mephibosheth.
David asks one of his servants to find him anyone left of the house of Jonathan so that he may show kindness to them. What's so interesting about that is the fact that the house of Jonathan were the decendents of Saul, so technically by natural lineage they would have been the "rightful" heirs to the throne of Israel. Since David was the God appointed heir he took the throne after god dealt with all of his enemies. But there was the one guy, named Mephibosheth who was one of Jonathan's sons. Back in first Samuel he was taken up by his nurse and fled from Isreal because they feared David was going to kill him since he was the next in line to the throne.
So now we come to the place where David has been established as king and now he remembers a promise he made to Jonathan.
1 Samuel 20:13-17 - "But also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house forever: no, not when the Lord hath cut off the enemies of David every one from the face of the earth."
Jonathan and David had a special brotherly love. A brotherly love like what is talked about in Proverbs 18:24 "A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother."
Another point about Mephibosheth....he was lame in his feet, or crippled.
My point with all the set up here is that
1. David didn't owe Mephibosheth anything, barring the promise he made to Jonathan
2. Mephibosheth was a lame man so there was nothing he could have done to earn, or work out favor with David....he was pretty much useless
Yet what we see is that because of the promise he had made with Jonathan, whom he loved with a brotherly love that was deeper than any other, he took Jonathan's weak, cripple son and brought him to his house, and had him eat there and live in choice lands for all his days.
How awesome is that. The man who was already feeling pretty worthless from the fact that he was cripple, now comes before David thinking he is about to be killed on spot, and instead is given kingly meals, and lodging for the rest of his life.
It's a story of two things: A mirror of God's grace to us, a bunch of cripple nothings who deserve to be killed, but intsead were taken up and brought to eat at the King's table.
And also it is a testimony to how important brotherly love is in the church, amongst our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Would we be so forthcoming with grace and aid to one of our fallen brother's or sister's family?

This has just been on my mind for the past couple of weeks.