In today's 1st Samuel reading, there are many excellent spiritual lessons. I love Jonathan's word to his armor bearer as they went up single-handedly against the Philistines: "God is able to save by many or by few."
However, the tragedy that really cuts to my heart in today's reading is how King Saul was commanded to completely destroy the Amalakites as they were a spiritual snare to Israel. But he only partially obeyed God's Word. He saved the BEST of the oxen and animals. When the Prophet Samuel questioned him on his actions, he replied, "We have obeyed the word of the Lord. We did utterly destroy the Amalakites, but we have King Agag as a Souvenir. Oooh... and that sound of bleeting of sheep and goats, and cows... we are saving them to sacrifice to the Lord."
But does God delight in sacrifices when we have not obeyed His Word? Does He delight in offerings of pretense when our hearts are not right with Him? What might we be holding on to, today, that God has said, "Let go!" because we reason, "Well, I can use this for God... I can do such and such with this... " and we justify away our complete obedience.
The Bible says, "Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." (1 Sam. 15:22)
Saul did not see his sin... he had deceived himself. He justified away his disobedience with a good work that he thought would please God. But... we can't excuse away God's commands with our own reasoning, EVER. That's why we must daily search our hearts, as we come to make our morning and evening sacrifice (devotion and worship) to God. Our hearts must be right with God if our offering is going to be accepted in His sight.
[Side Note: Obedience to God is not going to get easier. Something interesting that happened a few days ago has to do with this blog. Many of these blogs are posted on FB with the prayer that more will be blessed, and as a result, hundreds are reading. But a few days ago, after I posted "Lessons on Love from Boaz and Ruth," FB actually removed my post and link to this blog as they said "This post goes against Facebook community standards." Wow! I was shocked! I don't know if it's because I was speaking about the love between a "man and a woman" or because I spoke against women taking the lead, or what? I'm still confused. However, my question is, will we comply with culture and only do what is politically correct as things get more difficult... or will we continue to speak for our Lord and obey our King, no matter what He asks, no matter the sacrifice, no matter who is watching. While I'm very careful not to use FB (or any social media venue for that matter) as a platform for political opinions or social justice frustrations, I do believe we should use every avenue available to speak the Word of God, to share our testimony, and to testify of God's goodness in our lives...and that's all that I've been trying to do. So them removing my post over simply speaking Bible truth was quite a surprise to me. Anyway, the spiritual battle is getting more serious friends. We should pray that we continually uphold the name of Christ and not get lost on the sidelines bickering and arguing over our political and life frustrations. Let's keep our focus upward on Christ, otherwise the coming storm will pull us down. Let's be faithful to the end. To obey is better than sacrifice!]
Tomorrow's Reading: 1 Sam. 16:17 and Ps. 48
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