To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice

My Heart Is On Fire by Doug Apple - a short Christian devotional to open the Scriptures and make your heart burn within you!

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

To obey is better than sacrifice. What on earth does that mean?

We find this phrase in First Samuel 15:22. It’s the prophet Samuel talking to King Saul, the first king of Israel. Samuel said, “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…”

Saul insisted that he HAD obeyed, he just hadn’t TOTALLY obeyed. What was the big deal?

Apparently it was a HUGE deal. The very next verse, First Samuel 15:23 has some of the most sobering words in the whole Bible. Samuel said to King Saul, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”

So back to this phrase “to obey is better than sacrifice.” There is something inside of us that glorifies sacrifice. We give up something. We lay down something. We sacrifice something, and it’s a noble thing to do.

We often think of our veterans and how they sacrificed their lives, many of them to the point of death…a noble sacrifice for the rest of us in the country.

Now think of this in military terms. Which is better: sacrifice or obedience?

What do we want our soldiers to do: to wake up each morning and decide what they are going to sacrifice for their country, or to wake up each morning and do what they are told?

Do we want a national defense plan where everyone does what they think is best, or where there is a unified plan with commands from the top that the soldiers carry out?

Imagine a soldier is told to stand guard and watch the horizon for planes coming from the west. But instead of just standing there, watching the sky, he decides to really sacrifice himself and go clean the latrine, a disgusting job that no one wants to do. What a noble sacrifice, right?

But wait. What if it’s December 7th, 1941, and no one is watching for planes and we end up with the disaster of Pearl Harbor? Sure, it was a sacrifice to clean the bathrooms, but it would have been far better for him to obey his commands and stand watch.

This is why it is better to obey than to sacrifice. We’re not saying sacrifice is bad. In fact, you have to sacrifice in order to obey. The key here is that obedience is BETTER than sacrifice. We don’t just make up what we want to sacrifice and then tell God, “Oh, I’m sacrificing for you.” That’s what King Saul did. He was preparing a wonderful sacrifice for God, but he did not OBEY God.

So yes, as Christians we need to be prepared to lay down our lives as a living sacrifice, as it says in Romans 12:1. But we do that, not by coming up with something to sacrifice, but by obeying God.

Even Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice, didn’t just decide one day to do something sacrificial and give up His life for the sins of the world. Philippians 2:8 says that Jesus became “obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Romans 5:19 says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Yes, Jesus was sacrificial, but more importantly, Jesus was obedient…obedient to the Father’s will. “Not my will, but THY will be done,” Jesus said.

So as we go about our day, we don’t say, “Gee, I’m going to do something great for God. I’m going to sacrifice and give up something just for Him.”

Instead we say, “God, what do You want me to do? I want to obey You. I want to follow You. Not my will but Your will be done. Lord, help me not do MY thing, but help me be obedient. I want to fulfill my part in the body of Christ and carry out Your perfect plans. Not my plans, but Your plans.”

It’s not about sacrificing something for God. It’s about obeying Him…because to obey is better than sacrifice.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.