1 Samuel 11-15: Obedience is Better

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
    as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
    and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
    and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,    he has rejected you as king.

Sometimes I think that very few of us get the truth; God is looking for obedience, not sacrifice. We all find ways to sacrifice even if we don't admit it.  Most of our rituals and taboos are based on sacrifice:  don't do that, don't go there, don't associate with those people.  Meanwhile, we find it hard to do the one thing asked by God:  Love him with all our heart and our neighbor as our self.  That's a lot harder than obeying a lot of self-imposed rules about what constitutes godly behavior. 

We do have an example, however, of what obedience really looks like.  It's manifest in Jesus, the one whose friends were tax collectors, prostitutes and other forms of low life.  You don't see Jesus subjecting his disciples to a lot of the rules of the time.  He healed and even condoned them picking grain and eating it on the Sabbath.  Something the religious people of the day would never be found doing.  His only comment to the woman found in adultery was "Go and sin no more."  You could say that he made the ultimate sacrifice and he did, but it was because that was what the Father asked him to do.  He would have done whatever the Father asked.  Sometimes God asks us for sacrifice, but most of the time, he just asks for obedience.  - 1 Sam. 15:22-23 NIV