To Encourage You

1 Samuel 15:12 “And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, ‘Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.’”

Are you impressed with yourself regarding spiritual things?  When you look at your life and what you’ve accomplished, does it make you feel good?  Do you think that if others would just know how really good you are or could only know about all the good things you’ve done, they would likely congratulate you?  If you have any inkling of these feelings, it would be wise to pause for a moment and think again. 

In the account above we have a story of one who thought like this. It was Saul, the first king of the Israelites. He had been commanded by God to utterly destroy the Amalekites, a wicked, idolatrous enemy of the nation of Israel. God had determined that this nation and anything and everything that was part of it was to be removed from the face of the earth.  God’s judgment had been pronounced, and Saul was to be His executioner. So, what did Saul do?  He went to war with the Amalekites, just as God had said, yet he failed to obey God fully in that he kept the king of Amalek alive and the best of Amalek’s spoils.  Saul was so proud of his partial obedience that he made a monument to himself!  Then he went on his merry way.  He was proud about his accomplishments, and dismissive of his failure to fully obey God.  Then when he was confronted about his sin by the prophet Samuel, he tried to justify his disobedient failure to destroy the spoils (such as the sheep and oxen) by claiming this was but a means to offer sacrifices to God.  To this Samuel gave the well-known reply “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22). 

In the New Testament believers are commanded to completely and unmercifully destroy certain things, as well.  In Colossians 3:5-9 we are commanded to “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.”  In other words, although Paul is talking here to Christians, those who had been born of the Spirit, forgiven of all their sins and saved from sin’s ultimate consequences, he recognized that there were things still present within them of their “earthly natures.” They were things that warred against their souls. If left unaddressed, these things could destroy their effectiveness as spiritual soldiers of Christ and render them ineffective in their service to Him.  Like the spoils of the Amalekites, there were tainted things that were to be utterly destroyed.  Likewise, if we allow such things to live on in our lives, things like sexual immorality, evil desire (i.e., lust), anger, and obscene talk, they can rise up and hinder our spiritual life. Therefore, God’s commandment to us is to put them to death.  Rather than be oblivious to them or passive toward them, we are to destroy any semblance of these things in our lives. God has provided us with the sharp double-edged sword of His Word to do just that as it reveals their presence deep within us and guides us to turn from them because they are our enemies, and they dishonor the Lord we say we love. 

And we should never think we have “arrived” and be proud of our partial obedience to God’s commands (for isn’t all of our obedience partial in a sense). Hasn’t God told us to love Him with “all (our) heart and with all (our) soul and with all (our) strength and with all (our) mind” (Luke 10:27)? Yet, is there anyone who can say that they actually do this?  Do we realize that we all fall short of the glory of God in our obedience, and therefore do we humbly acknowledge our sin, confess it, forsake it, and press on?  Are we actively putting to death those things in our life that dishonor God, or do we smugly see ourselves as those chosen few who have “arrived”? 

May God keep us from the proud thoughts of those like Saul who viewed his partial obedience as such a wonderful thing, while being oblivious to the ways he had wickedly failed to completely obey the Lord.    May we humble ourselves before the Lord so that He might lift us up, rather than exalt ourselves while we, like Saul, undoubtedly, fall so far short.