I was perhaps nine or ten years old and I was sweeping our old, unpainted, farmhouse porch. I found that if I knocked on the floor sharply with the broom handle, little puffs of dust bounced up out of the cracks between the boards. It was pleasant to see that! I would sweep the dirt away, and then pound the next crack to give up its little cloud of dust. Thump, thump. Brush, brush, brush. Thump, thump, thump. Wouldn't my mother be pleased when the porch—including the many dozens of cracks—was swept really, really clean!
No, my mother was not pleased! I was supposed to be doing some other chore, and the intense porch-sweeping was nothing but a delaying tactic. "What are you doing?" my mother asked.
"I'm sweeping the porch. See! I'm even getting the cracks clean!"
No, my mother was not pleased! I was supposed to be doing some other chore, and the intense porch-sweeping was nothing but a delaying tactic. "What are you doing?" my mother asked.
"I'm sweeping the porch. See! I'm even getting the cracks clean!"
"I want you to go right now to do what I asked you to do. Obedience is better than sacrifice." I don't remember if she told me or if I already knew the Bible story from which that lesson comes. King Saul kept back some of the spoils of battle although God had explicitly told him to destroy everything. He then tried to excuse his disobedience by claiming he would make a burnt offering to God. The prophet Samuel denounced the plan. "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." (I Samuel 15:22 NLT)
You may think my childhood offense was not all that serious—and perhaps it wasn't, as possible offenses go. But my mother made the occasion and its lesson seem quite serious—or why have I not forgotten it all these years later? It sticks with me as firmly as the Bible story itself!
There are some obediences that God absolutely requires; everything else hinges on these. We are commanded to love God above all, and to love and care for others as we do for ourselves. Sacrifices of time, money, energy, and other resources, even for a cause as great as the Kingdom of God, are nothing if we aren't obedient to these commands. "If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love." (I Corinthians 13:3 MSG)
Obedience is better than sacrifice.
MaryMartha
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved. Scripture marked MSG is taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
You may think my childhood offense was not all that serious—and perhaps it wasn't, as possible offenses go. But my mother made the occasion and its lesson seem quite serious—or why have I not forgotten it all these years later? It sticks with me as firmly as the Bible story itself!
There are some obediences that God absolutely requires; everything else hinges on these. We are commanded to love God above all, and to love and care for others as we do for ourselves. Sacrifices of time, money, energy, and other resources, even for a cause as great as the Kingdom of God, are nothing if we aren't obedient to these commands. "If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love." (I Corinthians 13:3 MSG)
Obedience is better than sacrifice.
MaryMartha
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved. Scripture marked MSG is taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Art from htttp://www.sxc.hu/
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