To Obey or To Make Excuses

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.

23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination,

    and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,

    he has rejected you as king.”

Well then... 

Doesn't look like things are going to well for Saul here does it.

The funny thing is that Saul actually had his excuses all lined out for why he didn't do what God commanded. (1 Samuel 15)

Saul even had it all planned out that he'd make sacrifices to the Lord in the midst of his obedience. He really had it all planned out. We may look at Saul and say "What a fool! You can't do God like that!" But do we?

Do we find ourselves saying things like 

"I know what I'm doing is wrong, but_______." or 

"I'll get some accountability, and continue in my sin but me having accountability is like sacrificing my secrets."

 "I live in sin, but I tithe soooooo....." 

To obey is better than sacrifices... Ya know I believe that this isn't just a better to God thing. I know it may be hard for us to obey God's commands and do what He calls us to do when it seems uncomfortable or hard to give up that old sin that we wanna hang on to, but God doesn't command us to anything that isn't good for us.

He commands us to things that will make us look more like Christ and glorify Him! Ultimately He leads us toward who we are meant to be in Christ!

Again just like in my last blog...

HE KNOWS THE PLANS HE HAS FOR US

NOT TO HARM US BUT TO GIVE US A HOPE AND A FUTURE

Obedience to God is good all around.

Lets do our best to not substitute sacrifices for obedience

Lets do our best to pay attention to God's commands, so that we do not find ourselves throwing together a bowl of ratchet excuses as to why we didn't obey, and when we find ourselves slipping, let's repent. Truly repent. Not just toss up a "my bad" and continue down that road, but turn around and go the right direction again. 

It's better for us to live in obedience than to live in a cycle of watered down repentance and excuses. 

All Planned Out

Proverbs 16:2

Commit your activities to the Lord and your plans will be achieved

     Well that doesn't seem so hard. Does it? I mean I'll just throw up a quick prayer before doing something and God will come through for me right? Hmm..... But is that really how it works?

A few synonyms for the word Commit

Pledge

Devote

Dedicate

     So what if my plans really are all about me? How do I commit those plans to the Lord? How do I make something that is all about me glorify Him?

I can't

It doesn't work that way

     When we truly commit our activities to the Lord, what we say is "What I do is Yours!" So that means that there will be some of our plans will have to go away and they will be replaced with His plans for us, which ARE BETTER. That's right. Even some plans that we think are really good for us, will be replaced with His better plans for us, when we commit our activities to Him. 

     Sometimes that's really hard to go through though. I mean we plan stuff out like crazy. Sure scripture says not to talk about what we're going to do tomorrow (James 4:13), but hey we can't help it! We have to plan!!! And when our plans go south it often hurts. 

I want this to be an encouragement though

For those who are struggling with understanding why plans are going south

I mean you really are committed 

and things just seems so crappy right now

and if you were to be honest...

LIFE JUST KINDA SEEMS TO SUCK!

Because the plan was _________, but now everything just seems so screwed up!

I've been there for the past couple week too...

I'm reminded that God has plans for us that are better than the plans we may come up with

Even in our commitment to Him we can still tend to make some plans that are good but not best

He has the best for us

Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you." Declares the Lord

"Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

It may suck right now, but this is the hope that I hold on to.

As I continue to commit to Him and seek Him out in all the craziness

He's got something for me that's better than what I had planned for me.

So today I've got a peace of knowing that when what I want to come through doesn't come through

or doesn't come through the way that I want it to

God has it under control and He's got something for me. 

It's good to have that peace.

Stay devoted

Fear the loss of focus

I'm a weird person...

I have a tendency of fearing failure before going for something.

I really have to push myself and talk to myself into it and sometimes it takes days

maybe even weeks to talk myself into it. 

I hate this about me because sometimes I miss awesome opportunities because I'm afraid to take them and often wish I had someone to push me.

That's not the weird part though.

The weird part is that I tend be very successful at most things that I do.

And sometimes that success scares me more than the previous thoughts of failure.
Because deep down
and this is my biggest struggle

I fear getting so busy doing something that is going to help me invest
in what I want to do with my life
that I forget to actually do what I want to do with my life.

I fear the loss of focus.

But ultimately I know it's a risk that I have to take if I'm going to make it to where I want to make it.

so... Here we go