Title: Fake Obedience / Topic: Self Will vs. God's Will

Today’s Reading: 1 Samuel 15; 1 Samuel 16; 1 Chronicles 5; Matthew 1

Scripture: 1 Samuel 15:8-9
8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. 9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

Observation: Saul had been instructed to completely annihilate the Amalekites -- not sparing or taking anything at all. (Today we cringe at such a thought, but let's just focus on the story.) They attacked and destroyed them, but notice that they did not carry out the full destruction that God had specifically instructed. Instead, they used their own personal preferences to determine what to destroy and what to keep. And notice that the things that they considered "despised and weak", these things they "totally destroyed." So I hear the tinge of them carrying out their own hatred or bigotry or prejudice here. Things they despised they destroyed. Not as an agent of God's judgment, but at their own personal wrecking crews.

Application: I find today that people can here what God has instructed and then rationalize their way out of full obedience into a kind of self-directed facsimile of obedience. From the outside, it looks very much like following God, but on the inside, it is borne of the person's own will, modifying and molding God's principles in a way that suits them.

Bottom line: I must hear and obey. It is not my place to argue with God or change His explicit instruction to suit my tastes or desires. He is Lord. I am servant.

Prayer: Lord, we need more people who understand their place before You. Help me to be a leader who follows You with such careful and joyful obedience that others will see and want to follow my example. I want to do Your will and not my own. Help me Lord.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.