1 Samuel 2:11 (NKJV)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThen Elkanah went to his house at Ramah. But the child ministered to the Lord before Eli the priest.\u201d<\/em> (See verse 18)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The weakness of religion is that it divides our life into segments. There is a time for work and a time for worship. There is a time to play and a time to pray. With religion, you need to honor the segments and don\u2019t mix them up. Don\u2019t play when you should be praying and don\u2019t pray when you should be playing. But that\u2019s not the way God created Man. In God\u2019s divine purpose, all of life should be worship. In His original plan, all we do should minister to Him. We live to minister to God \u2013 not for a season, but for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elkanah worshipped and then went home to rest. He had performed his duty to God, and now he was free. But the child Samuel, even as a child, he remained and ministered to the Lord. Verse 18 says, \u201c\u2026Samuel ministered before the Lord, even as a child, wearing a linen ephod.\u201d<\/em> So while others went about doing other things, Samuel stayed focused on the primary priority of his life, which was to minister to the Lord. This also ought to be our life goal. We need to see that we are here on earth first and foremost to minister to God. We need to integrate this life of ministry into our daily routines of life. If we succeed to do this, our life will no longer seem compartmentalized. Worship, prayer and ministry will all be part of the daily flow and rhythm of life. Don\u2019t compartmentalize your life. Offer it all as \u201ca living sacrifice to God.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs that song goes, \u2018Lord I give You my life, I give You my soul. I live for You alone. Every breathe that I take, every moment I\u2019m awake. Come have have Your way in me.\u2019 This is my desire, Lord. Teach me how to do this. I want to live only to minister to You. I don\u2019t want to do this in a temple or a monastery. I want to minister to You and worship You through the daily patterns of my life. Help me achieve this Lord. In Jesus name. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1 Samuel 2:11 (NKJV) \u201cThen Elkanah went to his house at Ramah. But the child ministered to the Lord before Eli the priest.\u201d (See verse 18) The weakness of religion is that it divides our life into segments. There is a time for work and a time for worship. There is a time to play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-1st-samuel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/1-Samuel-Cover.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3351,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions\/3351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}