March 22, 2011 Committed to Life

Committed to Life
Read 1 Samuel 14-15

1 Sam 15:22 What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.

THIS IS TOUGH. Here we are again. We saw this in Joshua. I don’t like reading about God’s instructions to Saul to kill all the Amalekite men, women, children and every animal they own. God was punishing their sin against him and his people. But my moral sense says, “It’s wrong. Aren’t you a God of Life?”
Indeed he is. God’s focus on life is eternal, and he could not allow the sin among the Amalekites to turn his people from his eternal life plan for them. He knew their sin threatened his people’s lives. He needed to sacrifice this people group to sustain his own people and to continue his plan to give you life.
God is so committed to your life he killed his own Son to save you. Your sin killed Jesus. God could have come to kill you, and it would have been right because you are a sinner. God killed Jesus, instead, so you could live.
Do you understand this incredible act God has done? The Amalekites disobeyed. Saul disobeyed. I’ve disobeyed. You’ve disobeyed.
But Jesus obeyed the Father. And Jesus’ blood saves us to eternal life! The more I know God, the more I understand how intolerable any sin is in God’s sight. The more I know God, the more I am in awe of his life gift to me. That gift is for you, too.


Pause and Consider: what you will do with that gift.