Every year during the summer our local fire company raises funds by setting up a donation stop outside the fire house that happens to be on the way to our local grocery store. And yup, every year I get caught unaware and I am scrambling to find a few dollars to donate and away I go with my “little red flower” they give me as a token of their appreciation. I hang my “little red flower” on my rearview mirror feeling good about my small sacrifice and off I go to fulfill my grocery list. As I’m walking up and down the grocery store aisles I’m prompted to remember the volunteers, then about how hot it is outside. How each of them has devoted their Saturday afternoon to their cause and I am again prompted to buy a case of cold water for them. Now it was out of obligation that I donated the few spare dollars. OK, don’t judge me. We have all been in a place where we are presented with a situation that we comply with, out of obligation, right? But as for the water, no one was the wiser if I chose not to obey the small voice, no one but me and the Lord.

Here is where I would remind you of 1 Samuel 15:22; “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than to sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

In the book of 1 Samuel we see the Lord anointed Saul to be the King of the Israelites and sent him into battle. He gave him strict instructions through Samuel about the battle. He was to spare no living thing. Saul did not obey His instructions. Instead he saved everything that he deemed good and destroyed everything that he despised and was weak. He then set up a monument in his own honor and used the best of the goats and the cattle from the plunder and sacrificed them to the Lord. Although the Lord is the One that instituted sacrifices, this was not what the Lord told Saul to do and the Lord was grieved and regretted making Saul the king of the Israelites. 1 Samuel 16:7 reminds us that the Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. When our heart is in unison with the Lord we will be pleasing to our Lord and blessed in our obedience.