October 27: 1 Samuel 15 20-23

Key Verse: 1 Samuel 15 22
But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

Devotion:
It took quite a lot to get Saul to realise what he had done and how he had walked away from God! Some may think they will never reject the Lord in the way Saul had done, but if truth be told, we all succumb to the world around us and give in to those ways rather than what God has taught us – even if we only do it once!

In his own eyes, Saul had done what Samuel told him should be done for God; yet when we look at it we see where he went wrong and think it silly he could not see the truth. When we walk away from God’s ways, we lose sight of the truth God has given us and focus on the truth the world forces on us – and they are not one and the same! Saul followed his own ways and the ways the people thought were right instead of God’s ways.

Saul even went as far as selecting the best animals for the sacrifice to God… but he was doing this after he had already gone his own ways. We face the same problem in our own lives – we do what we think is right and then we try to justify it by applying God’s rules in our own ways instead of the ways God intended them to be done. No amount of our own sacrifice is good enough to cover sins we have done intentionally and that is why Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice for us.

He did not do this so we could go and do what we want but rather that we could come to Him and ask for forgiveness when we finally see what we have done wrong. From that moment on He would rather we followed God’s law than continue in our own ways and expect Jesus to always cover our sins… He will! But we should not take Him for granted as we do many things in our lives…

Points to Ponder:
Do you follow you own ways and expect others to trust you?

Jesus followed God’s ways to show us we could trust Him as our ultimate sacrifice!