1 Samuel 13 tells of Saul’s crucial failure that occasioned his rejection as king. You may well feel that God’s judgement, pronounced through Samuel here, is overly harsh for what Saul actually did. At surface level Saul’s sin was to offer the burnt offering himself (that was a necessary gesture of dependence on God in battle) instead of waiting for Samuel whose prerogative it was, as priest of Israel, to do this. Considering the pressure that he was under, with the enemy hemming him in, the action seems quite excusable. But in God’s eyes this was just an expression of a state of heart that disqualified Saul from such a weighty responsibility as that of king over his people. God gave Saul to the Israelites as king because they wanted to be like other nations around them. Saul was indeed like the kings of the other nations. His primary concern, and we see this emerge more and more explicitly from this time on, was his own status and power. He offered the sacrifice to satisfy the men who were threatening to abandon him. Saul had a heart-cancer called ‘selfish ambition’ and, though the symptoms were slight at this stage, the cancer itself was serious. We will see greater symptoms begin to manifest from hereon in the story. Though Saul lost his role as king, he could have been personally restored to God through consistent humility. God knows what is in our hearts and he often allows circumstances to bring the symptoms of our attitude problems to the surface. If we respond with humility and contrition, we will always be saved.
What are your personal ambitions? Submit them to God again today.
Read 1 Samuel 13:1-15
