Pastor Ben's post:
Practical Trivia:
Can you guess; What unit of measurement does the 20 in 20/20 vision refer to? Feet, inches, yards, or meters? Take a guess!
Saturday 9/30
Challenge:
Eccl. 5:13 "There is another serious problem I have seen under the sun. Hoarding riches harms the saver."
Yesterday we arrived at this section in the Bible where Solomon reminded us of the potential harm of making the amassing of riches, or even success, too important. Today we are reminded of one of those harmful effects: hoarding brings harm to the person who is held captive in this matter.
In Israel's history they several times fell captive to their own greed. King Saul is a perfect example of when God provided a victory. Saul was commanded to take nothing from his victory in order to remind the Jews that it was God who gave them this victory, however, Saul instead brought back livestock in order to make a sacrifice which Saul intended to bring himself glory rather than God.
Listen to Samuel's response in 1 Sam. 15 "But Samuel replied, “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 final act of Saul's disobedience resulted in God removing the blessing of His Spirit from working through Saul's family. He rather than rejoicing in God's victory held onto an offering in a form of self glory.
Imagine even his disobedience though it was clothed in the form of a sacrifice brought harm to him & his family, just as greedily holding onto things can do in our life. He who began as a young man who was so humbled before God that by being made king slowly was brought to harm as he held onto the hoarding of the successes that he enjoyed during his reign.
Just think he started by when he was declared their king, by hiding among the luggage because he was shy and embarrassed because he was made king. Then he started a destructive pattern to the point wherer ather than asking God for direction he sunk to going to a witch for direction, as to whether he should go to war. These steps of making his victory more important than his surrender to obeying his God resulted in his removalfrom kingship.
Sometimes we may fall into the trap of thinking that our success is more important to our Heavenly Father than our simple obedience. When we are tricked by the enemy to think in this way, we must remind ourselves that all our Father desires is a simple act of repentance. If in this story Saul would have repented, this chain of disobedience would have been broken. We must all guard our hearts from holding onto victory rather than just reliquishing our simple submission to His will. This is His greatest desire for our lives, and will provide life abundant.
Oh, my dear one, SO GO WITH GOD for He will bring rest into our lives daily and guard us from pride and the failure of submitting to His ways. Our surrender, and even sometimes failure, will bring the greatest comfort into our lives.
My guess is meters