Today's Reading - 1 Samuel 15

Obedience is Better than Religiosity

A lot of people make the same mistake as Saul.  They think that their religious activities will cover their life of disobedience to God.  Tragically, this never works.  God is not impressed with our religious acts, nor does He give us credit for our religiosity or dutiful sacrifices. To put this another way, we could say, behold, to obey is better than “going to church,” and to listen to Him is better than “taking the eucharist.”  To obey is better than “working as a volunteer” on the church committee, and to listen to Him is better than “donating to the church offering.”

It is an ugly characteristic of human nature to believe that we can “be good enough” or do enough “good works” to somehow make ourselves pleasing and acceptable to God.  But this is never the case.  There is no amount of human goodness that could ever be enough to satisfy a holy God, because there is no way to cover all of my sins and acts of disobedience.  The goodness that God demands is perfection and our religiosity will never, ever, achieve it.

Saul disobeyed God.  He failed to utterly destroy the flocks and herds of the enemy as he had been clearly commanded to by God.  And then, to make matters worse, he attempted to placate God by offering sacrifices on the altar.  When Samuel arrived, God’s decision to replace Saul for his disobedience had been sealed.  He would no longer be king.  Why?  Because he carelessly handled the word of God and thought he could justify himself by performing “religious activities.”

Oh, how we need to be so careful about this.  We, as followers of Christ are, of course, saved by grace through faith.  There is nothing more we can do to make ourselves acceptable to God than to believe in the sacrifice of His Son on the cross for our sins.  Once cleansed of our sin by faith, we are to embark on a life of obedience to God, listening to His voice, and following His word.  When we fail in our obedience (and we will), we must never make the same mistake as Saul by trying to cover our sins with religious activities, going to church, paying our tithes, reading our bible, etc.  We must return to Him in humility and repentance and be cleansed by the ONLY thing that can truly make us right with God – the blood of Christ – for “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

If only Saul had learned the value of obedience over religiosity.  The outcome of his life would have turned out dramatically different.