To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice

(Click to listen)

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.

I Was a Hyper-Competitive Child

(click to listen)

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

I was sitting in the garage, crying my eyes out.

I wasn’t crying because I was sad.  I was crying because I wanted to kill someone, but since that was not an option, all that was left was crying.

I was playing an older boy in basketball, and he beat me mercilessly, and it was so frustrating.  I grew angrier and angrier, and if there is such a thing as murdering someone in your heart, I did it repeatedly that day.

My mom finally came out to help me settle down, but that day was the apex of my hyper-competitive childhood.  I wanted to win, to always win, and I hated losing.

One time I was wrestling a friend, which was fine, it was competitive, but then his brother jumped in and the two of them pinned me to the ground.  I was spitting mad…and this was my best friend!  

Why was I hyper-competitive?  I have no idea.  I guess I could say I was born that way.

After that tearful, angry basketball game I started to get better control of my competitive nature.  I realized it’s just a fact of life, you can’t win every time.  But it was definitely still there, under the surface, a beast waiting to rise up.

It really wasn’t until God came in and began changing me that I was able to shift away from wanting to win at everything, all the time, and be able to just enjoy a game and enjoy the friendship and camaraderie of spending time with others.

For example, if you and I went and played a game of tennis today, and you played great and beat me every time, I could still enjoy the game, and even be excited for you and your skill and the great shots you made.  But there was a time when I would have been tempted to smash my racket to smithereens…though rackets cost money and I’m very frugal, so I would never actually do that.

I bring this up to say that, just because we might say we are born a certain way, with certain desires, doesn’t mean that is actually who we are.  Those feelings are not our identity.

There is a movement in our culture today that says if you have certain feelings, then that is who you are, period.  If you don’t roll with those feelings, then you are not being your authentic self, and you are even going to end up a psychological mess, if not downright suicidal.

Have you ever gotten lost?  Have you ever felt like you were going north but you were actually going south?  Have you ever felt like eating a cookie was exactly what your body needed?  Have you ever felt like life would hardly be worth living if you couldn’t live it with that one certain person?

Have you ever felt like, “If I don’t win this game, someone is going to have to die”?

Feelings are great, but they’re a terrible compass.  They can just as easily lead you in the wrong direction as they can lead you in the right direction.

What we need is an actual compass.  When it comes to life, I have found an effective compass in God’s Word in the Bible, and in listening to the still, small voice of His Holy Spirit.

Being hyper-competitive, even though it was a dominant feeling, and even though, as far as I can tell, I was born that way, according to the Bible it wasn’t leading me in the right direction.

Galatians 5:22-23 talks about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  When I was being hyper-competitive, I had none of those.  So which was right, the feelings I was born with, or the Bible?  Which was better?  

I can tell you that being hyper-competitive was vastly worse than having those qualities that God brought into my life, as I listened and received from Him.

Thank God I didn’t believe the lie that my feelings, even if I had felt them from as far back as I can remember, were my identity.  God had far better plans.  

In Isaiah 55:8-9, God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

God knows best!  He made us, and He knows what’s best for us.  

So listen.  You are not your feelings, even if you’ve had those feelings for a long time.  If your feelings don’t line up with God’s Word, then it’s time to go to God and ask Him to help you go from living by your feelings to living by His eternal truth and according to His plans, which are much better.

Sure, you don’t have to take my word for it.  All I can say is that I was born a certain way, with certain feelings and certain desires that didn’t line up with God’s Word, and when I decided to come to God, surrender my feelings to Him and do things His way…THAT’S when it finally started getting good, and I started seeing God’s great benefits in my life, including a boat load of:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.