Today's readings are 1 Samuel 14.47-15.9 and Acts 24.1-23.
We see today that Saul is driven by another enemy, but this time not by the Philistines. He is driven by an enemy that lives within him. In our last reading we saw that God was rejecting Saul and would bring an end to his kingdom due to Saul's disobedience. This does not mean that God was finished using Saul, though. In fact, Saul continued to reign for some time. In today's reading, notice that he is used as the instrument of God to destroy some of the pagan people around. Their sacrifice of children, their worship of false gods, their plunder of God's people was an offence to God, who chose to use the people of Israel to remove them from the land.
What was Saul supposed to do? He was to kill them all, leaving none alive, leaving no plunder, no nothing. The destruction was to be as thorough as the destruction we read about many years earlier at Jericho. But look how Saul obeys. He is victorious in battle. There is no doubt about that. But he sends refugees away, spares the leaders, and keeps all the choice livestock and plunder. Saul is contending with an enemy far more formidable than the surrounding people. He is contending with himself. And he is losing.
Like Saul, we tend to take the law into our own hands. We tend to act in the way we think right, even if God has directed us otherwise. May we have grace to learn from Saul that our victories that we score according to our own principles, following our own plans, reinterpreting what our Lord has said, are no victories at all. They may look like victories to us, they may look like victories to our culture, but in God's eyes they are not victories at all.
This all points us to the fact that in Christ's death he gained victory over death itself. From God's perspective victory doesn't look like it looks from our perspective. May we have our Lord's perspective in all our life. May the Lord guard us from ourselves.
We see today that Saul is driven by another enemy, but this time not by the Philistines. He is driven by an enemy that lives within him. In our last reading we saw that God was rejecting Saul and would bring an end to his kingdom due to Saul's disobedience. This does not mean that God was finished using Saul, though. In fact, Saul continued to reign for some time. In today's reading, notice that he is used as the instrument of God to destroy some of the pagan people around. Their sacrifice of children, their worship of false gods, their plunder of God's people was an offence to God, who chose to use the people of Israel to remove them from the land.
What was Saul supposed to do? He was to kill them all, leaving none alive, leaving no plunder, no nothing. The destruction was to be as thorough as the destruction we read about many years earlier at Jericho. But look how Saul obeys. He is victorious in battle. There is no doubt about that. But he sends refugees away, spares the leaders, and keeps all the choice livestock and plunder. Saul is contending with an enemy far more formidable than the surrounding people. He is contending with himself. And he is losing.
Like Saul, we tend to take the law into our own hands. We tend to act in the way we think right, even if God has directed us otherwise. May we have grace to learn from Saul that our victories that we score according to our own principles, following our own plans, reinterpreting what our Lord has said, are no victories at all. They may look like victories to us, they may look like victories to our culture, but in God's eyes they are not victories at all.
This all points us to the fact that in Christ's death he gained victory over death itself. From God's perspective victory doesn't look like it looks from our perspective. May we have our Lord's perspective in all our life. May the Lord guard us from ourselves.
--
Dave Spotts
blogging at http://capnsaltyslongvoyage.blogger.com
No comments:
Post a Comment