1 Samuel 8:19-20 (NKJV)
\u201cNevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, \u2018No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Be careful what you choose to copy. There are many great examples out there, but not everything great is for you. I know we usually want to imitate success, and follow in the footsteps of successful people, but we need to define what success really means. For each person God created, He has a special purpose in mind, and success means following up to fulfill the reason for which you were created. God may have intended something else for someone else, and seeking to copy him may lead to your destruction because God\u2019s grace will not support you outside of God\u2019s purpose for your life. Grace is connected to purpose. The same thing applies to institutions and organizations, and even nations. God raises up organizations and institutions to serve His purposes, and we may look at them and want our institutions to imitate theirs, when God has a different agenda lined up for your organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Be careful what you choose to copy. Not every good thing is good for you. The people \u201crefused to obey the voice of Samuel.\u201d Why? Because they wanted to be, \u201clike all the nations.\u201d They wanted a king that would go out before them and fight their battles. It was at this point that Samuel realized that the problem was really not that his son\u2019s behavior had turned the people off. It means that even while he was judging them, they had been dissatisfied because he was not a leader like the kings of other nations around them. It was then that it dawned on Samuel that the people had actually rejected his God, who had always gone out ahead of them to give them victory. They had turned their hearts away from their divine calling as a nation under God\u2019s direct leadership and wanted to be a nation under man\u2019s leadership. Even though they had not suffered loss under God\u2019s leadership, they envied the nations around them who had a man visibly leading them. They were moving away from their grace and calling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Be careful what you copy. You have a unique ordination and calling. Your family has a unique ordination and calling. When your heart is tempted to want to be like others, listen to the Holy Spirit\u2019s voice, and see if He is pulling you back from that desire. Yes, imitate what is good, and if He gives you liberty, copy what is good. But remember always, you are unique, and your calling is unique. Your grace is tied to your calling and ordination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1 Samuel 8:19-20 (NKJV)\u201cNevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, \u2018No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.\u2019\u201d Be careful what you choose […]<\/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-6595","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\/6595","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=6595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6597,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6595\/revisions\/6597"}],"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=6595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}