Accuracy Matters!

​“Accuracy Matters, Your order should be correct every time. If it’s not, we’ll fix it right away, and give you a free treat for our trouble. Just let any associate know.”      The place of business that issued this on the receipt has a high goal and standard.  To get your order correct every time.  It would be nice if all businesses adopted this type of customer service.       In Samuel’s restating of what God required of Saul, he asked:

Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (1 Samuel 15:19)?
And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,  as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king. Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice (1 Samuel 15:20-24).

Accuracy of keeping God’s Word matters. Our highest aim should be to obey God. We should strive for absolute compliance with God’s Word in every application. Saul is an example of disobeying God through partial obedience and substituting man’s way in place of God’s way.     

Adding to God’s instructions (Revelation 22:18), being obedient with the wrong heart (Romans 6:17) and practicing a knowing and not doing mentality (James 1:22).      

Obedience as God approves is following the teachings of the Bible and conforming ourselves to the likeness of Christ. “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:8-9).      

We should obey God and His Word because it is our ultimate aim to be pleasing to our Creator. We should obey God because He desires it. 

​We should obey God since we will be judged by His Word pertaining to our obedience or lack of it. Finally, should we not fulfill God’s Will in our lives, our worship, our teaching, our service, and our daily existence because we will be rewarded for our obedience. “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 13:23).

​Steve Miller