Tuesday, October 23, 2012

To Obey is Better than Sacrifice

Today I read 1 Samuel 15 where Saul is commanded to to destory the Amalekites completely.  He is commanded to destroy all the men, women, children, even the livestock.  However, Saul does not do this.  He destroys the men women and children however he captures the king of the Amalekites and some of the livestock so that he can make a sacrifice to the Lord.

The Lord comes to Samuel and tells him that He, the Lord, is sad that He made Saul the king.  He sends Samuel up to Saul's camp and to tell him that he has been replaced as the king.  When Samuel arrives Saul greets him with the pride of a conquerer.  Samuel quickly deflates him however by telling him that he knows he did not do as the Lord commanded him to do.  Samuel tells Saul that the Lord would rather have had Saul obey Him than have sacrifices offered up to Him.  The scriptures tell us in several places that Heavenly Father likes it when we obey Him.  Jesus taught the Israelites that if we love God we will follow His commandments. 

Our modern day prophets and Apostles have taught us that the only thing we can give Heavenly Father that is truly ours is our will.  When we surrender our will to Him and do as He asks of us, we have given Him all that we have to give.  We are here in this life to decide what we want out of eternity.  We only have a short time, relatively speaking, to decide.  And the thing is, not deciding, is still making a decision.  When we delay or put off the decision, we are unconsciously making a choice NOT to obey God.  The only way to really serve Him appropriately, is to consciously make the choice to serve Him.  If we don't do that, then we are like the Prodigal Son, squandering our inheritance and our time.  Just like Joshua said in days of old, choose you this day whom you will serve.  But as for me, and my family, I will serve the Lord!  Until tomorrow.

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