1 Samuel 15:22 But Samuel replied

  “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

  To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

  For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.

These are the words that Prophet Samuel spoke to king Saul after he defeated the Amalekites and he and his army took hold of Agag, the king of Amalekites and the best of the cattle alive. The command from the Lord was to completely destroy the Amalekites along with all that belonged to them. Instead of that king Saul caught king Agag and did not kill him, and his army too spared the best of sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs and everything that was good to be sacrificed to God.

But Samuel says it is better to obey than to Sacrifice. We must acknowledge that the sacrifices to God are to show our repentance and turning back from our disobedience and to follow God whole heartedly.  So obedience is always better than sacrifices, because if there was no disobedience there would be no sacrifices.

If Saul had done exactly the way God told him to do, there was no requirement of any sin offering.    

From the life of king Saul we see that he was small in his own eyes when God chose him as a king over Israel. He was a humble man and spared the life of those who did not want him to be king. Saul brought Israel many victories from the time he reigned as king over it. He did all that was told by Samuel and followed the commandments of God. Though Saul was a humble man and gave importance to his fellow Israelites, he did not always depend on the word of God. He made decisions of his own. He made own decisions because he was impatient man. He feared God, but not to the extent that he could control the Israelites from sinning against God. His heart was more for the people than God. He worried about the people. So he did all that which people think to be right. He did things that pleased people and not God. He also made decision quickly without seeking the will of God to answer the people who were becoming restless due to long waiting. And finally he also committed sin by not following the command from God to destroy the Amalekites completely. He thought that God would act in the same way He has be doing all the while, forgiving their sins and showing mercy.

Yes, I suppose it would have been like that if Saul repented and sought the forgiveness from the Lord and sincerely prayed to God to show His great mercy that He has been showing all the time. But instead of repenting to God, Saul asked Samuel to forgive his sins. He did not talk to God himself because he did not know God on his own. He knew God is great and He is the one who makes decisions. But what he did not know is that to connect with God and ask God to show mercy and seek His forgiveness for his foolish acts.

When Saul came to know through Samuel that he was acting foolishly and committing sin, little did he know that God has already found a man after his own heart! Saul was arrogant and confident that he will remain king even after doing all that he has been doing. But what happened? God made David king of Israel in a very splendid manner. King David always repented and sought mercy from God. Though king David committed sin in the eyes of the Lord, he immediately repented as soon as he realized the sin.

To obey God is to do His will. When we are not doing His will, we are not obeying Him and are sinning against Him. It is very important to seek the will of God and when we know the will of God, we need to wait upon the Lord. We need to wait upon the Lord because God has set a time for everything. When God choses and places us according to His purpose, He will definitely want us to obey Him and do all that He wants to do through us. This will only bring good in our lives. But sometimes we do things that please others and not God. Pleasing others always bring praise and goodwill in the society. To be called a gentle and humble man we might ignore to rebuke the one who is doing wrong. But when God is not with us, all will be gone slowly and our glory will be given to someone else. That is how God is working. If the will of God is that we lay our lives to save others, we have to lay it down to have it. For Jesus say in Matthew 16:25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

Which is more precious than the life in this world? For Jesus says in Matthew 16:26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their souls? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Jesus came to show us what obedience can bring for us. He gave away the riches of this world when offered by Satan, but gained all the heavens and the earth and He took back His life and lives eternally after laying down His life for the sake of this world that He loved so much and all this He did by being obedient to His Father God. Now everything belongs to Jesus Christ and when the end of the age comes, Jesus will destroy all that is bad.

Let us be obedient to God and do His will and seek His blessings and be victories in our life.

God Bless You !
Amen.

Try to Be Like Christ to be called a Christian

                                                                                                                                                                         

1 John 2:6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

Most of the young Christians are ignorant about what it means to be a Christian. We might be reading Bible, going to church and praying and not know the essence of being a true Christian. It is important for every Christian to understand that the aim of a Christian must be to follow Christ and to be like Him. If our thoughts and actions are not according to the teachings and commands of Jesus Christ, we are losing a lot of good things in life. He is the perfect example of a truly successful man on earth. No man is as rich as Christ and no man has risen from the dead like Christ and no man possessed the highest office like that of Christ. He owns the whole universe, the Heavens and the earth and He is the High Priest for God Almighty. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him by Almighty Father. 

He says to set your eyes on heavenly things that are permanent and not on the worldly things that will pass away. Many of us are living lives according to our own understandings of good and bad. We judge things according to the society we live in. But that is not what God wants us to be like. He wants us to follow Him and be truly successful. World around us is failed because of its sins.

The importance of solved papers we all know. We score well if we study the already solved papers. And Jesus is the solved paper for our life’s examination. Jesus has answers to all the day to day puzzles and He successfully helps us to overcome those problems, there by triumphing over our adversaries. If we live according to His teachings, He promises us His Peace. He gives it not as this world gives. This world will never give us a permanent peace but, He will give that which cannot be taken away by anyone. When we let His will be in our lives, He takes care of all that we have. He says when the earthly parents who are not as rich in love and mercy as God is, are able to provide their children with good things, then how much more will the Heavenly Father bless His children who love Him and follow Him.

Being obedient to God is the only way to please Him. Jesus showed obedience to God His Father in everything. Even to the point of death He showed obedience, so that through His act of obedience produce the fruits and fruits eternal. He could take back His life after taking the keys of death from the hands of the deceiver.

And also being obedient to God will make us become righteous in the sight of God, we can live the holy lives that He is expecting us to live and bear fruits that are by the Spirit. Our love for God is shown in our actions, in our obedience to His will. When our will becomes the will of God, then we truly love Him and seek Him. Do not doubt His will, because He is faithful, the most faithful. His will in our lives will produce fruits that are going to give happiness to both the Father and the Child.

I would like to give one of the many examples from the life of Jesus Christ when He was in this world. It is that He never obeyed or did that which Satan told Him to do. Satan tempted Him for food, riches of this world and at one point the Satan even asks Jesus to jump off from a high point so that the angles might save Him from hitting the rocks below. But our Lord Jesus Christ knew that by doing so He will be testing the Almighty Father. We will test if we are to make sure about something. Jesus Christ knew His Father and He knew how much the Father loved Him. Sometimes in our lives too will face such situations after knowing God’s will. After we have stepped according to God’s will, we will encounter the problems that might test our faith in Him. Satan will certainly play with our minds to make us do things that fail us. But we need to know that just trusting God and being with Him is the most important one. Remember how Jesus was attended by the angles after the Satan, the tempter left. We are here to be tested and not God tested by us. Please do not confuse yourselves with the testing to know the will of God in the 1^st place. We can ask God to show us His will by asking Him to do certain things so as to indicate that we are in the right path of understanding His will.

If we are focused on the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, He will certainly help us to become better day by day in life and give us peace, health, wealth, success and His Kingdom and the right to become His children.

May God bless you!

Prayer: Dear Father in heaven we thank you for your word and seek your will in our lives. We pray to you to teach us your ways and lead us in your light. Strengthen our faith in you and give us the heart of obedience towards you so that we may have lives that you have shaped.

To dear God our Father and Jesus Christ our savior be all thanks and all praise and all glory forever and ever.  Amen.