Our hearts of true worship ; To obey or to sacrifice
I have often found obedience and sacrifice to be two of the most closely related virtues but often don’t appear to get along which is quite interesting . God always puts our obedience above our sacrifice, just like he puts our willingness to truly show Love above speaking in tongues. The Bible always reveals to us that the higher ways are the narrow paths we may find walking alone or with few others. As much as God honours our obedience above our sacrifice, it doesn’t mean God isn’t moved by sacrifices at all.
As much as God honours our obedience above our sacrifice, it doesn’t mean God isn’t moved by sacrifices at all.
I remember there have been moments in my life I have found myself sacrificing unto God things I knew weren’t done out of obedience but out of my own righteous judgement. I can give up and destroy the detestable things lord, just name them ; anger, gossip, lying, stealing, envy, jealousy but if you can ask me to give up on my ego, my kindness, my vulnerability, my openness, Lord do you not care that’s the best part of me?
In 1 Samuel 15, we read of how God instructed the first king of Israel, Saul to strike Amalek and completely destroy everything by not sparing women and men, children and infants ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’\
. .But we read in verse 8 & 9 that Saul captured Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, though he totally destroyed all [the rest of] the people with the sword. Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and everything that was good, and they were not willing to destroy them entirely; but everything that was undesirable or worthless they destroyed completely.
Here is the temptation especially for believers who often feel right at the center of God’s promises. We may be far away from what we may deem as undesirable and worthless sins but be so deeply rooted in the things that may seem right to us but wrong to God.
Saul being so right in his own eyes and judgement went ahead to build a monument of glory for his victory. When Samuel met him at Gilgah he said to him “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? But Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God; but the rest we have destroyed completely.”
In the end Saul lost the very glory He was trying to save. When God asks you to give up something in obedience , He doesn’t need you giving it back in sacrifice.
When God asks you to give up something in obedience , He doesn’t need you giving it back in sacrifice.
There are so many times we will find ourselves on the path that God requires us of everything- not just a part of it- Both our worst and best selves in total submission to him, to deny the self fully in order that we may follow Him genuinely.
Some few months ago, as I was thinking deeply on the word surrender, I made a mental note to totally surrender two areas of my life I figured I was struggling with to God. Whilst two areas sound good and practical, I began to wonder why I felt the need to hold other parts of myself in partial submission. Is it because I have figured out how to live those parts well by myself? The best parts of me as I assume?
And yet at the depth of my soul, I know that it is in killing the best parts of me, that I can have the best part of God.
Devotedly,
Jo Nketiah
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