Trust and Obey

 DEVOTION

1^ST SAMUEL

TRUST AND OBEY

1 Samuel 15:1-11

15:1 Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. 2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'" 4 So Saul summoned the men and mustered them at Telaim — two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men from Judah. 5 Saul went to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the ravine. 6 Then he said to the Kenites, "Go away, leave the Amalekites so that I do not destroy you along with them; for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt." So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites. 7 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. 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. 10 Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel: 11 "I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions." Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the LORD all that night.

NIV

When God gives instructions, they are to be fulfilled right down to his every word. Saul failed to follow the LORD’s command. Samuel told Saul to listen to the message from the LORD. Because Saul did not follow the message and did not destroy every living person and everything in possession of the Amalekites, he either was not listening, or he had his own agenda that he had purposed in his heart to take some plunder. When he destroyed all that was despised and weak and kept everything that was good, it showed he was not a man after God’s own heart, but a man after his own heart. When Saul failed to follow the LORD’s message, the LORD grieved that He had made Saul king. It is strange to see the LORD say he was grieved, or as the Hebrew word means, regret, to be sorry, to repent. Because the LORD is all-knowing and lives outside the constraints of time, we must believe the LORD already knew Saul would not do what he was supposed to do. How can the Lord God, who knows everything, our thoughts before we think them, our words before we speak them, our actions before we act, regret making Saul king? Was not this the plan of God all along, so that David would ascend to the throne? However, the LORD wanted Samuel to know that Saul was on his way out, and Samuel's response was to be troubled and cry out to the LORD all night. We will see later in this chapter, Samuel telling Saul the LORD has rejected him as king; however, we still have a truth here we need to consider as a lesson. When we are given instructions from the Lord, we are to follow them to the fullest. Saul received his instruction from the LORD through the prophet Samuel. We do not have someone like Samuel to speak the word of the Lord to us, but we have the word of God in printed form, which contains his instructions. We also have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us who illuminates the Lord’s word, revealing the truth to us. It is also possible that God can speak directly into our hearts, or even into our ears. We have already considered and taken to heart the fact that we cannot put God in a box with our own ideas of how God should speak. However, if he never speaks directly to us either through a prophet, the Spirit, or verbally, he speaks to us through his word, which we call the bible. The problem is whether we follow those instructions to the tee, or do we ignore some. How much latitude does the Lord give us before he rejects us as his sons? We have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, as we have been born again, or born from above. Jesus said, "Unless we are born again, we will not see the kingdom of heaven." But what about all the rest of the commands of the Lord? What about the beatitudes, or two commands Jesus said all the law and the prophets are fulfilled when we love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves? Do we at least follow those two to the fullest? Then there are those words he speaks to us personally. His call upon our lives, where he sends us, or what place in the body we are supposed to be, those are personal messages from the Lord. Do we follow his path for our lives completely, or do we slip in a little of our own hearts’ desires? We need to be careful making sure we stay in his plan, and as Jesus said many times, “Follow me”, we must follow him fully.  Saul did not trust or obey the LORD. We have been called to trust and obey. How are we doing?