“But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.” 1 Samuel 15:22 NLT

If you are a parent we could have heard this word ‘obedience’ many times to our children. We get frustrated and show anger when the child do not obey. Disobedient young children is one thing to worry about out but the disobedience in the older kids which would cost their life is a serious thing .

God also can get angry when we do not obey, He is pleased with obedience than sacrifices in other words God acknowledges when we obey his commandments than act of all our religious activities .

This passage talks about King Saul who disobeyed Gods commandments which angered God. The instructions given to Saul was to destroy everything in the land of Amelek. Saul instead of destroying from the sin land he took the best of the animals and captured the king of Amelek . He sacrificed those animals to God , his intentions were to please God by sacrificing the best animals whereas God wanted to destroy the land and everything within .

This cost the kingship of Saul, The Bible says that God regretted to put Saul as king of Israel.

This is a reminder that we be careful in obeying Gods instructions. We may be ready to spend half of our wealth in church or other religious activities. When there is a lack of obedience everything is nullified .

In all the activities that we do for God the Bible encourages to examine ourselves to see if we obey God in our lifestyle , our activities , our personal life . When you take precedence over other activity to please God where God instructed to otherwise , we miss out on what God had called you to be.

God instructed Abram to move , he obeyed for a great blessing.

Jesus met Saul and instructed him to preach gospel to the same people he persecuted, he did .

Jesus is an excellent example for explicit obedience .

May your ideas, intelligence , passion , vision all be aligned to obey God . Anything of this that deviate from God is like walking in dark without a light .

Delayed obedience is also disobedience.

I encourage you today , to acknowledge that call of God, instructions from God and act accordingly.

Prayer

Lord, give us hearts that listen and spirits that obey. Help us not to replace obedience with sacrifice or intention with action. Align our thoughts, desires, and decisions with Your will. Teach us to obey fully, promptly, and joyfully, so that our lives may truly please You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.