“…Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than
the fat of rams.” – 1 Samuel 15:22 (NRSVUE)
In this Season of Lent, we commit to sacrificing all sorts
of delights and pleasures and that is all well and good but what about our
obedience to God. Have we ever considered sacrificing our obedience?
Surrendering it to Him?
In the verse above, the prophet Samuel was talking to King
Saul. You see, God had given Saul strict instructions concerning his dealings
with the Amalakites, however, Saul did it his way. He did not follow God’s
commands precisely, and to top it off he erected a monument in his own honour at
Carmel before traipsing off to Gilgal. Crazy, right?
Yet how many of us do the exact same thing. We may not “put
up a tall stone to give (ourselves) honour” but we certainly beat our chests
and boast on our accomplishments that did not involve anything that God told us
to do.
“Samuel said to Saul…listen to this message from the Lord. This
is what the Lord Almighty says: “It is time to punish the Amalekites!
When the Israelites came out of Egypt, the Amalekites attacked them. Now
go and attack the Amalekites. Completely destroy everything…But Saul and the
army let King Agag live. Also, they did not kill the best sheep, lambs, cows
and fat calves…You think that you know what is right better than God does…You
decided not to obey the Lord's command. Now the Lord has decided
that you will not be king any longer.’” (verses 1-3, 9, 23)
Saul won the war, but he certainly lost the battle. Saul
lost everything.
That is what happens when we bypass God’s instructions and go
about doing our own thing. Like Saul, by doing a version of God’s plan we
smugly believe that we have done it right, but a version is an aversion to God.
Partial obedience is disobedience. Dis is a prefix which has a reversing force. Dis-obedience is therefore, not a form of obedience.
When we
are disobedient, we “ruin” God’s work, and He is not pleased. Not because the
outcome of our disobedience affects Him, but because it affects us and not in a
good way. Fortunately for us, we are living in the dispensation of grace
through Jesus’ Blood, so we have the opportunity to repent and change course.
God’s wisdom is so much greater than our own. Why do we,
every one of us, continue to forge our own paths? Hearing God’s directions but refusing
to listen. Feeling inspired but ignoring
the pull. Getting a message but not paying heed to it. Like king Saul, we
simply want to do our own thing.
I have a little granddaughter, who when she was a wee tot, made
it quite clear that she did not want to obey her parents, pre-school teacher,
or any adult for that matter. When asked why, she said, “I want to do my own
thing.”
Beloved, whether we understand what God is doing or not,
the truth is we still have to be obedient. Trying to figure out the whys, the wherefores,
the because, the therefores, the what fors and so on don’t matter; the answers
may come in due time or they may not. What matters is our obedience. Our job is
to obey God because He is God and He actually knows what’s best. (see Isaiah
55:9; Jeremiah 29:11; Matthew 6:32; Ephesians 3:20)
Obeying God is empowering, it is liberating, cultivates
discipline, causes us to grow spiritually and takes us beyond our natural
limitations.
Dis-obedience should never be an option.
So, when God tells us to do something, let’s do it, not
halfway but all the way, not half-heartedly but wholeheartedly.
Amen? Amen †
Shelley Johnson “Let us Repent
of…Dis-Obedience” © March 10, 2025
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