Today my bible reading was from 1 Samuel 15:10-26.

I read the story of how God rejected Saul. I started with verse 24 where Saul admitted to Samuel that he had sinned against God because he was afraid of the people. So I asked the Lord, why were you quick to forgive David and not Saul? Then the Lord took me to read from verse 10 to verse 23.

Here the bible details that Samuel had a mind that was focused on himself and not on God. In verse 12, it records that when Samuel inquired of Saul, he was told that he went to set up a monument unto himself. A monument unto himself signifies that he wanted to honor himself after the battle and not God. This must have displeased God. One thing I am learning about God is that his glory, his honor he will share with no man or any other entity for that matter. Why we may ask?

Because he alone is worthy of our praise. God alone is the only true God and as such the one to whom all praise, worship and adoration should go to. When we make people our “go to” because of fear of the world or the unknown then we are effectively cutting God out of our lives. People, money, possession or whatever we put our trust in usually fail us. The bible says the arm of flesh shall fail (Jeremiah 17:5; 2 Chronicles 32:8). So when we begin to trust other sources other God, he becomes displeased with us because these other sources can cause us to worship them. Obedience means we trust him. In addition to that, no human or any other entity for that matter is built to withstand worship it always ends in disaster. Also it can cause us to lose who we are and become conformed to the image of whom our “source” wants us to become.

The problem with this is that it can make us lose sight of who God created us to be. We we will not be able to fulfill our own potential when we are fixated on fulfilling another person’s expectation of whom we should be. This was the problem with Saul. He lost sight of the fact that it was God who made him king and he began to clamor for the attention and praise of men. This is not right, we are to present ourselves as a living sacrifice to God, willing to obey him. This is the only way we can genuinely worship God. Obedience to him is our true worship to him.

The way I saw it before, in my opinion both kings disobeyed God. David with Bathsheba and Saul for not following the Lord’s command to completely wipe out the Amalekites. In David’s case when he was confronted by the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 12) he immediately became contrite and sought repentance from God. Saul on the other hand tried to justify himself (sounds a lot like me from time to time) that he obeyed the Lord’s command. The way he tried to argue his case was that, yes I wiped out the Amalekites but I kept their king alive. Then I only destroyed those things that were inferior but did not destroy the “superior” ones so we can use it to offer a sacrifice unto the Lord. Who can argue with this line of reasoning. Clearly from the outside it sounds good right? Wrong. Why?

Because the Lord gave him a command and he chose to partially obey the command. Saul felt like he knew better God. Even when he was confronted I don’t believe his heart was truly repented nor did he seek repentance the way David did. He felt that Samuel could pray for him and then it would be business as usual. This can happen when we begin to disregard the ways of the Lord in our heart. We being to think, O we can just ask for forgiveness and carry on as usual. The bible says in the book of Titus 2:11-14 that God’s grace causes us to move away from immorality and towards God. It teaches us not to be flippant about the things of God nor to make a mockery of his mercy. But to help us learn how to truly worship God by obeying his voice. Not for us to think in our hearts that our ways are better and to disregard his ways. Well we usually find out that ultimately his ways are better, some of us come running to him. But think of the heart ache we could have saved ourselves.

I am sure that Saul would not have been rejected if he had chosen to seek genuine forgiveness just like David did. As a lesson, it is better to fully obey God in whatever he wants us to do (myself included). There are many times I have felt the quickening of the Holy Spirit to do something or say something to someone and I did not obey out of fear (like Saul right?). There are times I have obeyed I have had no regrets. Even if there are regrets or the outcome is not as intended, God promises to turn things around for our good (Romans 8: 28). Or we can count it as joy to be persecuted for the Lord (James 2:1-3) right ?.

In a nutshell. the bible admonishes us to obey God rather that offer sacrifice as a way of compensation for not obeying God. Because God is pleased with our obedience as it shows our worship and honor of him rather than sacrifice. While it is good to offer sacrifice unto the Lord, the real sacrifice God desires from us is our hearts being completely turned towards him in obedience. Then he can do what he wants through us and in us.

Prayer: Dear God, please help me (and the reader) not to rebel against you when you ask us to do something for you. Help us not to disobey you either partially or fully. For disobedience is likened to rebellion and the sin of witchcraft. Help us to keep our hearts yielded to you in true worship in Jesus name, Amen.