The most important thing...

When King Saul made excuses for not following God's instructions to the letter, he not only justified himself and blamed others, he also continued to offer "good reasons" for what he had done… and not done. He said that they had saved some animals in order to make sacrifices.

And so, in 1 Samuel 15 vs 22 - 23, the prophet Samuels explains the bottom line principles for serving God with a right heart motivation:

1. Hearing and obeying God's voice is the most important thing we can do. It is infinitely more important than all our hard work, no matter how sacrificial that work might be. God delights in our obedience to His voice more than in our acts of religious observance. To obey is better than sacrifice.
2. Disobedience is a serious thing; it's not a "small sin," but is indicative of exactly the same heart attitude as other, seemingly more "obvious" sins. Rebellion against God's instructions is compared here to the sin of witchcraft, and arrogance (putting yourself and your own opinion before God's) is said to be just like the evil of idolatry.
3. Heeding God's word (embracing and obeying it) is a key to His favour and anointing. Saul is told that, because he rejected the word of the Lord, God has rejected him as king.

There is no question that God loved Saul; there's no doubt at all that Saul really was the person God chose to be the first king of Israel. But Saul forfeited his calling, anointing and blessing by choosing to do things his way instead of God's. No amount of sacrifice or ceremony, no amount of excuses or blaming other people could cover up for that clear act of disobedience.

If we were to prioritise only one Bible principle for living a fruitful Christian life, surely this simple principle would be a strong contender for top of the list: to love and obey God is more important than anything else that we could possibly do. Not only does it bring great joy to His heart, it's also a key to blessing and fruitfulness in our own life, family, church or ministry.

Partial obedience...

Last summer I was chatting with a friend about the things that shape our life values. Some of our values come from our family or our culture, and may even influence us subconsciously, while other values have been chosen more deliberately as a result of our life experiences or our reading of the scriptures.

Two of my own personal values relate to the area of obedience to God, and I know that these heartfelt values had their origin in my reading of the Bible as a teenager. They are:

• partial obedience is disobedience
• delayed obedience is disobedience

I can remember that these principles surfaced again and again during my Bible reading of the 1970s and 1980s, but they became so much a part of my life, that I no longer remember exactly all the different Bible passages and stories where those truths caught my attention.

This week, however, when reading the account of  Saul's failure in 1 Samuel chapter 15, I remembered clearly that this was one of the stories that illustrated and cemented my life value about the danger of partial obedience. If you remember the story, God has given King Saul and his army a great victory over their enemies, the Amalekites. God also gave them very clear instructions that they were not to keep any of the plunder for themselves, but were to destroy it completely. Sadly, Saul and his men were unwilling to carry out this clear directive from the Lord. They obeyed in part, but failed to be radically and completely obedient. Verse 9 tells us that they destroyed everything that was weak and despised, but they made a decision to keep the best sheep and fattest calves for themselves. Later, in vs 15, Saul rationalises his disobedience by finding "good reasons," even spiritual-sounding reasons for his actions. He says that they saved the best cattle "to sacrifice to the Lord."

Even as a teenager, I remember realising how easy it could be for us to live with this kind of partial obedience and rationalisation nowadays. Perhaps, as Christians, we give up smoking and getting drunk…. but we hold on to over-eating. We give up stealing and lying, but we tolerate gossip and criticism. Like Saul in vs 9, we "destroy what's despised and weak," but we're unwilling to get rid of the sins that seem more respectable or acceptable to us. We may make it sound righteous. ("I'm only telling you this, so that you can be praying for them.") Or we may be reluctant to destroy something because of its material value…. like not burning occult books or not getting rid of pagan jewellery. Either way, we tolerate disobedience. It's as if we think that we know better than God. When we do that, it's like putting ourself and our own opinion in the place of God. We read in verse 12 that Saul had built a monument in his own honour; perhaps he was taking the credit for the victory that had just been won over the Amalekites. 

There may even be an element of self deception in placing our own perspective and authority above God's. When Saul meets Samuel in vs 13, he greets him by saying, as in the picture above, "The Lord bless you. I have carried out the Lord's instructions." Is he deliberately lying in order to cover up his sin and disobedience? Or has he actually fooled himself into thinking that what he's doing is okay, and that he has obeyed what God asked him to do?

Father, I don't ever want to live with that kind of self deception in my life. Please will you draw my attention this year to any areas of life where I'm living with only partial obedience. Because, as I learned several decades ago, partial obedience is disobedience.

This too makes all the difference

In my ongoing daily reading in the book of 1st Samuel, I arrived at chapter 7 yesterday and came across something else that "made all the difference."

The Ark of God had been returned to Israel (see previous post) and it had been in the town of Kiriath Jearim for twenty years…. but in all this time, the people still never managed to have victory over their enemies, the Philistines. The Philistines had long been a thorn in their flesh and the story of Samson (in the book of Judges) is a sad example of how one leader after another failed to lead the people into victory.

Enter the prophet Samuel, who sees that the people are crying out to God but not seeing any breakthrough as a result of their prayers. Samuel says to them, "If you're really serious about returning to God with all of your hearts, you need to get rid of all the idols that you have put in God's place. Serve God and God alone…. and you'll be amazed to see how He'll deliver you from the enemies that are oppressing you."

And the people take Samuel's words to heart. They get rid of all their false gods and, as they gather at Mizpah, they confess, "We have sinned against the Lord." 
(1 Samuel 7: 6)

This simple acknowledgement of personal responsibility, and the actions they took to put things right, are what made all the difference. As the people re-aligned themselves with God's ways, they were amazed to see how He intervened on their behalf and gave them victory over their enemies. After decades of struggling with the Philistine problem, there was a spectacular breakthrough and we read that the Philistines stopped invading Israel's territory. Throughout the rest of Samuel's lifetime, there was no further problem with the Philistines.

It can be easy for us to make the same mistake as the Israelites. We keep praying to God to give us victory over something that has us in its grip: perhaps a bad habit, a critical spirit, a tendency to worry, a lack of self discipline, a bad temper…. And we don't do the one thing that makes all the difference: recognise and acknowledge that what we're doing is actually sin and that victory can never come until we confess and get rid of it.

In the leadership development course, we consider a topic that we call "signature sin." The idea is that each of us has a particular type of sin that will tend to be our personal challenge: something that is so linked to our personality, that it seems to be an integral part of who we are. For some of us it may be impatience; for others it may be greed or worry or stubbornness… If we dismiss our tendencies as being "not too bad" or excuse them as being "just who I am," we will end up learning to live with them, and probably never have victory over them. 

It's only when we're ruthless in looking at our own lives and courageous in calling a spade a spade (or a sin a sin) that we can see the kind of breakthrough and lasting change these people experienced in 1st Samuel chapter 7. Lord, grant us that kind of insight and courage in 2014!

Misconceptions and missed blessings...

Reading in the sixth chapter of 1 Samuel this week, I was struck by how easily our own misconceptions and wrong ideas about God can rob us of the blessing that could have been ours. 

At this point in Israel's history, their enemies, the Philistines, had captured the Ark of God, and then decided to return it, after seven months of discovering that their disrespect for God was causing them all kinds of problems. Now, the Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God in the midst of His people, and so there was much rejoicing in the town of Beth Shemesh when the people saw two cows coming towards them, pulling a cart that brought the Ark back to Israel. The Ark had brought disaster to the Philistines, but would be a source of certain blessing to God's own people, as they respected it and honoured the Lord.

But the simple fact of belonging to God's people is not enough to protect us from the consequences of our own disobedience or presumption. Some men of Beth Shemesh decided to look into the Ark (something that was totally forbidden in their Law) and they paid for their disobedience with their lives. Sadly, although these men had brought this consequence upon themselves, it struck fear in the hearts of the people and they no longer wanted the Ark in their midst. They contacted the people of Kiriath Jearim and asked them to take the Ark away to their town instead.

It's an old story, with concepts that are not readily familiar to us in our modern world. And yet in their own way, many people in the 21st century respond in exactly the same way as the people of Beth Shemesh.

It's a fact of life that our own sinful behaviour brings negative consequences into our lives. If we live in certain ways or are addicted to particular substances, it can have a devastating effect on our health and wellbeing. If we are often motivated mainly by our own pride and self-interest, it will inevitably lead us into conflicts and have a negative effect on our relationships. If we make business decisions that are not based on integrity, we may find ourselves in trouble with the law or even end up in prison. It's the simple principle of sowing and reaping.

What sometimes happens, however, is that people look at the negative fruit in their own lives or in the lives of a family member, and they allow themselves to begin blaming God for what has happened. Instead of recognising that an individual is responsible for the negative consequences in his or her own life, we start to say, "Why did God do this?" or "Why isn't God answering my prayers about this situation?" And ultimately, like the people of Beth Shemesh, we allow our wrong understanding to make us move away from the presence of God. Just like they did, we start to keep Him at a distance.

How sad! Living in God's presence is a key to such blessing and strength. How tragic to miss out on that blessing because we are mistakenly blaming God for natural consequences that we or others have brought upon themselves. Back when we were schoolchildren, we learned about the law of cause and effect. We can see it in action in our universe - in science, in philosophy, in computing, in relationships and in the moral realm. It's part of our world. It's crazy to blame God for results that we as humans are responsible for. Misconceptions about God's character can rob us of the presence and the blessings that He wants to be ours.

So when we pray for family members who aren't walking in obedience to God… let's not focus our prayers on asking God to cancel out the negative consequences of their behaviour. Let's pray instead that they'll be open to God's grace and wisdom about how to sow good seed and start to reap good results instead.

It's what makes all the difference

This morning, my daily Bible reading found me in 1st Samuel chapter 3. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Biblical truth about the spiritual capacity of young people has long been one of my life messages, and so this is a very familiar passage. It's the story where a small boy called Samuel hears God's voice for the first time. As the chapter begins, we read that this little boy was "ministering" in the temple - probably helping the priest in various ways. And by the end of the chapter, Samuel is already well known as a prophet, because people recognise that his words are truly from the Lord.

One verse in particular stood out to me this morning, and it's the thing that makes ALL the difference. In verse 7 we read that, Samuel didn't yet know the Lord. The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. This statement illustrates a fundamental truth: just because a child is in church, doesn't mean that he knows the Lord. Or the fact that an individual - of any age - ministers and serves in a church context, doesn't necessarily mean that the person knows God in a real and meaningful way. What makes all the difference, according to this writer in verse 7, is whether or not the person has actually heard God's voice for themselves. 

And even those who have heard God's voice in the past can so easily slide away from that intimacy if we don't regularly take time to say, as young Samuel said in verse 10, Speak, God. Your servant is listening.

Let's not forget to do that regularly and often in 2014. Hearing personally from God is what really makes all the difference when it comes to knowing Him and enjoying a friendship with Him in the twenty first century.

Recharging or replacing?

Shortly before leaving Scotland this week, I had the privilege of sharing in church services at my home church. It's become kind of a "tradition" now that I speak in the church on the first Sunday of every year. My word to the children this year was something that has become one of my "life messages" over the past thirty years or so. I am thoroughly convinced of the spiritual capacity of children and teenagers, and so I wanted to start the year by encouraging the youngsters that they are never "too young" to know God, talk to Him, read His Word and hear His voice. My message to the adults was about stewardship, I guess: it was a challenge to be faithful with what God has entrusted to us in 2014, and to step out in using our talents to serve God and others in this new year.

After I arrived in Spain, a different kind of stewardship raised its head. It was still dark when I got up yesterday morning and I got a shock to discover that my little car (a tiny Hyundai Atos that has always been very dependable) wouldn't start. At first I thought the battery was just sluggish because the car had been sitting unused for a couple of weeks. But lights, wipers, etc, seemed to be working normally. In the end, I had to call for roadside assistance, who told me that the problem was, in fact, with the battery: it had come to the end of its lifespan and, although working a little, it no longer had enough power to start the car. It was time for me to maintain my car by installing a new battery.

And so I headed to the workshop to find out about replacing the battery. My car is very small, and the old battery was also very small. The mechanic suggested replacing the old battery with a larger, European one, instead of ordering a more expensive Atos battery from Korea. But because the new battery was larger than the old one, he needed to make a few adjustments before installing it, and I ended up spending an hour or two in Coín while the work was being done. I was glad that at least it was a pleasant sunny day, and not one of the rainy, stormy days they'd been having over the new year. Soon my car was ready and I could drive home smoothly again.

Thinking about batteries made me think too about stewardship of our lives and our relationship with God. Spending time with God every day - praying to Him and reading His Word - is like recharging our spiritual battery. If we don't do it for a while, we may find that we're spiritually sluggish and slow to get started when God calls us to action.

But if we've never been born again, if we've never personally taken that step of inviting God to be the driving power in our lives, we need to have our old lives, our old "battery" replaced by a new life and a new heart. It doesn't matter how often we try to recharge or rework our old lives in our own strength; unless we allow God to give us a new battery, we are doomed to failure.  In the Bible, in Ezekiel 36: 26, God offers to do that for us. He says, "I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart."

Sometimes, even when we have that new heart, and even when we're regularly "recharging" by spending time in God's presence, there come seasons in our life where God wants to "enlarge our heart" in some way - to make room for something or someone else that He has for us. One translation of Psalm 119 vs 32 says, "I will eagerly run to obey your commandments when you enlarge my heart."

Just as my car had its small battery removed yesterday, and a larger, more powerful battery put in its place, there are seasons in life when God seeks to enlarge our hearts and expand our capacity. As with my car, this may require a few "adjustments" in our lives in order to make room for the new thing that God desires for us. Perhaps 2014 will be one of those times for you or for me. May God make us sensitive and willing for the new things that He has for us this year.  

And if 2014 doesn't turn out to be the time for a "new battery," let's continue anyway to keep recharging the old one, and refuelling spiritually by spending regular time in the presence of God. Many blessings to you in this new year.

Happy New Year

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