1 Samuel 14:24 (NKJV)
\u201cAnd the men of Israel were distressed that day, for Saul had placed the people under oath, saying, \u2018Cursed is the man who eats any food until evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies.\u2019 So none of the people tasted food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saul made several wrong decisions in his lifetime, and while it\u2019s okay to make mistakes, repeating the same types of mistakes reveals something about you. And one thing we see about Saul was his penchant to focus a lot on himself, and not on the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In our spiritual pilgrimage, who we focus on and why we do what we do is important. The correct attitude that attracts God\u2019s heart, is when our entire being revolves around Him and not ourselves. God wants to see that our deepest heart motivations have to do with pleasing Him and not pleasing ourselves. \u201cIn Him, we live and move, and have our being.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the anchor of our hearts is to please God, it will manifest in our decisions. The reasons we do things, and how we do things will show whether our primary concern is about the Lord and not ourselves. Because the heart is exceedingly deceitful, we need to search deep to understand our true reasons for doing the things we do, lest we be trapped in self-deception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saul had not intended to go into battle. Jonathan was the one who took the high risk by secretly attacking first. By the time Saul and his men got involved, the Philistines were already melting away, and attacking themselves. He got involved late in the day. And yet, here he was making all the people take an oath of fasting until he takes vengeance on his enemies. Deception!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The framing of his words showed that Saul was only thinking of himself. Here are some revealing questions. \u201cHow did the Philistines become his enemies?\u201d \u201cHow can he claim to be the one taking vengeance on them?\u201d \u201cWhy should the army be compelled to fast and fight at the same time, just to please him?\u201d \u201cWhere is God in this whole equation?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I repeat what I said before. The heart of man is exceedingly deceitful, and one of the greatest deceptions of the heart is to couch Self under a spiritual disguise. We need to uncover all falsehoods and unveil Self wherever he hides himself, even if under the veil of false spirituality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Constantly test your heart to ensure that only the Lord is at the center of your motivations and decision-making. That\u2019s why we must die daily at the cross of Jesus. Only by dying to Self every day, can we really live for God. May God reveal our hearts to us. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1 Samuel 14:24 (NKJV)\u201cAnd the men of Israel were distressed that day, for Saul had placed the people under oath, saying, \u2018Cursed is the man who eats any food until evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies.\u2019 So none of the people tasted food.\u201d Saul made several wrong decisions in his lifetime, and […]<\/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-6727","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\/6727","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=6727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6729,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6727\/revisions\/6729"}],"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=6727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}