Pastor John,
I was reading the “Suffering and the Saints” book last night. I started the 2nd section The Judges and read these scriptures:
1 Samuel 15:22-23:
22 And Samuel said, Hath 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, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”
I felt like the Lord really opened my eyes to this scripture last night. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Whew! It put a fear in me that I had to stop and pray that the Lord finds no rebellion or stubbornness in me! To really see it like that really did something to me.
Michelle H
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Hi Michelle.
It is interesting that you should bring that up. During the night last night and this morning, the Lord has been showing me how “the pride of life” plays into stubbornness and rebellion.
The pride of life makes us feel that our life is so important that we are equal to those whom God has put over us – and that feeling is there, in the flesh, from the time we are born. It is the reason toddlers have to be disciplined, and older children refuse to follow instruction, and grown ups ignore laws and do things their own way. This is the way of all the earth, the way of the flesh, not of the Spirit of God, and it is evil.
Paul said, “In me (that is, in my flesh), dwells no good thing.” But he had to suffer greatly to gain that knowledge. As a young man, persecuting God’s children, he did not feel that way. He was too full of the pride of life to see it.
May God grant us the humility of Christ, which overcomes our inborn assumption that our kind of life is something grand and important and that our way is as good as the way of those whom God has set over us for our good.
Pastor John