Partial Obedience?
Partial Obedience?
Do you obey God with all your heart or only halfheartedly?
In 1 Samuel 15, God gives King Saul specific instructions on how to deal with the evil Amalekite people. He was to completely destroy them and not take any plunder. What did the King do? He fought the Amalekites and won the battle but took the Amalekite King alive and his livestock. When confronted by the Prophet Samuel, he said he obeyed the Lord (even though he didn’t). Perhaps he thought that “partial obedience” was still obedience. How about you? When God requires you to read and study His word, and you miss more than you hit, that’s “partial obedience.” When God instructs you to not forsake the assembling together of other Christians, and you stay home from church because you don’t feel like going, that’s “partial obedience.” When you believe in God and desire to follow Him and only do it halfheartedly, that is “partial obedience.” Like King Saul, you choose to do what you want instead of what God has told you to do. In 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel tells King Saul, and you and me, what God thinks of partial obedience, “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.” In other words, God was saying, “You thought to bring me sheep from the Amalekite King’s livestock to sacrifice, but I demand obedience, total obedience, to my word. Stop making excuses for your disobedience, King Saul!”
Beloved, partial obedience is still disobedience! King Saul was a habitual offender; he did not repent and was ultimately rejected by God. If you are like King Saul, stop making excuses for your disobedience. Instead, today, repent and recommit yourself, with all your heart, to following the words and ways of the LORD…lest you suffer the same fate as King Saul!
This is Laine Wilder for Carry the Light Ministries, bringing you Insights From an Elder.
by Laine Wilder
author of “Insights From an Elder” for
Carry the Light Ministries
