As I shared in the last devotional, Saul rebelled against God by partially obeying him, and the Lord was not pleased! God directed Samuel the prophet to confront this issue.
And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 1 Samuel 15:20-21
Saul insisted that he had obeyed the Lord even though he brought back King Agag which God specifically commanded to kill. It may have been the custom of the kingdoms of those days to bring back the defeated king as a “show and tell” to the people and to celebrate how powerful the victory was. Nevertheless, the Lord is not impressed by our customs nor our culture when they get in the way of our obedience to God.
Saul did not take responsibility for his sin, and he blamed the people for bringing the spoils from the war. When God puts his finger on an area of our lives, it is best to take ownership of it and not blame others for our sin. The Lord is always right, and we can’t debate our case with a Holy God!
But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. James 1: 14-15
The reality is that people and circumstances can tempt us to sin or pressure us to compromise, but they can’t make us sin! We are ultimately responsible for our sinful desires that led us astray, and we have no one to blame.
The beauty of walking with God is that He is always ready and available to forgive us of our sins if we are willing to repent. However, if we excuse our sin, we don’t receive healing and restoration for our soul. We just get more set in our lustful and fearful ways.
So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.” 1 Samuel 15:22-23
The word “delight” in the above scripture has to do with God’s pleasure and purpose. The Lord has a greater pleasure in us obeying him than to just make sacrifices to him. Any activity that is regular religious activity can be like the sacrifices that Saul was going to make.
The word “obey” in the above scripture is about listening with an intent to obey! In this type of obeying we are connected in a relationship to our father which is above and beyond tradition or rules. It is God’s desire to walk with Him in such a way that our ears are always attentive to His voice.
For example, I go regularly to prayer meeting at our church on Saturday mornings at 6:30 am. I don’t necessarily ask the Lord each Saturday morning if I should go to prayer meeting. If the Lord asked me one day to stay home and use the time to meditate on him or spend it with my husband, I have a choice to obey His voice or not. I can choose to obey God, or I can go “faithfully” to my prayer meeting. I may even tell the Lord, “I’ll do it later”. One will please God, and the other one will please myself or others.
Our walk with the Lord has to be based on valuing his voice in our lives far more than just following our religious routines. This type of obedience is something that is unique to our relationship with the Lord. God may not ask the same thing from our spouse or our best friend, but He is asking us to do it. Saul’s army didn’t see anything wrong with what they had done because the Lord didn’t speak to them. He spoke to Saul.
Lord help us to not to just follow a religious routine, but to always have attentive ears with a heart to obey! In Jesus’ name. Amen.