I am reading through the book of 1st Samuel right now and this is what I am gathering so far. The first half of this book is really sad. If you have not read it or need a little refresher you should stop reading this waste of time blog and go read up to chapter fifteen right now. If you don't want to do that, than here is my summary. The Israelites are not happy being different then the civilizations around them so they whine for a king. Samuel the only real man of God that is found in this story up to this point warns them that if they get a King it is going to be nothing but heart ache, but of course they do not listen, and God appoints a man that does not even want the job named Saul (when he gets called up to be anointed he goes and hides in the luggage, check out chapter 10). Of course what God says is true and pretty soon Saul is doing a royally bad job at being the King (sorry for the pun). There are a lot of examples of this, but as I was reading today one story in particular stood out to me. In 1 Samuel chapter 15 we find that God has decided that it is time for the Amalekites to pay for the way they treated the Israelites when they were coming out of captivity from Egypt (Exodus 17:8-15). The Lord was very clear with Saul that he was destroy everything that had to do with the Amalekites. Saul decides instead though to take the Amalekite king hostage and to keep the best of the livestock and slaves for himself. The Lord informs Samuel of this and when he goes to confront Saul about it Saul insists that he did what the Lord had commanded him to do. Here is the last straw for God, he had put up with a lot from Saul but it was his half truth that put him over the edge and made him reject Saul as the king, in fact the Bible states that because of this, "The Lord was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel."
When I read this story it made me think back to something I had heard Matt Chandler of The Village Church say awhile back in a sermon he preached. He stated, "Men who aspire to be Men of God forfeit the right to half truths." He was in essence saying that Men of God need to have integrity. This is really what Saul's core problem was, he was not a man of integrity at all. He followed God only as long as it brought him comfort and when his comfort came into jeopardy he caved and then lied about it. The sad thing was that he had fully convinced himself that he was doing what the Lord wanted him to do. I believe that we as ministers have more in common with Saul than we would like to admit. Take a moment and ask yourself these questions (I did after I read this story)
1) When was the last time I told a half truth (time spent in office, how I spend my time when I am there, where I got that sermon or lesson from etc)
2) When was the last time I caved in and did something I knew I shouldn't in order to please the crowd (Saul blames his actions on the people after he sees that the, "I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do," excuse was not working). Maybe a better way to ask this question is, When was the last time I should have spoken out against something I knew was wrong but did not because I did not want to make the crowd upset.
3) How many times have I let my comfort get in the way of God's work?
These are hard questions, and it would be easy to simply pass over them and go on with our day, but one thing is for sure. If we refuse to be men and women of integrity God will find someone to do our job who will.
I would love to hear your thoughts, what steps do you take to make sure that you are a Man or Woman of God i.e. keep your integrity?
