🦁 Epiphany 2-6
Readings: Psalm 86; 1 Samuel 15:10-31; Acts 5:1-11.
From the TRNG Room:
Reflection
Good morning and welcome to the 10th day after the epiphany. My name is Tim Tribble and I'm coming to you from Sacramento, California. Some very powerful readings today have to do with actions. In the psalm, of course, we hear this is a prayer of David. He's praying to God. He's glorifying God and talking about how he Gives thanks and glorifies God and then towards the end he asked God for God's strength Because men have risen up against him and he needs God's help
Then we go to Samuel There's an interesting position there because Saul was the first king of Israel That came into position because originally Israel was a nation that didn't have a king. God said, you don't need a king. I'm the king. They had judges who took care of the, you know, day to day operations and running the nation, if you will, and solving disputes and things like that.
But they didn't have any king. a king like everyone else in the Middle East at that time. sO the people said, Hey, we want a king. We want a king. We want a king. They kept on and on and on. And finally God relented and made Saul the king. And what does Saul do? Saul pays lip service to God. Well, yeah, I'm gonna do what he says, but we're going to go out.
God said, we're going to go take the Amalekites. My spirit is with you. You are to corrupt. They were to annihilate them, erase them. Nothing was to be left over. Nothing was to be taken. Everything with them was to be totally destroyed. What happened? Well, Saul let the, let the people. Listened to people and said, oh yeah, we'll take the spoils of war.
And we'll go ahead and bring back the best stuff. But we'll, we'll sacrifice it to God. But that's not what God said to do. And he said, God sends the prophet Samuel to Saul to call him out on it and say, no, this is what God told you to do. God told you to completely and utterly destroy the Amalekites. You didn't do that.
What did you do? You brought stuff back. Why am I hearing sheep? Why am I hearing cattle? Because you didn't do what you were told to do. And then in Acts, we have a story of a couple, Annias and Sapphira. Now there's a little more to this story. They were a couple. They had said they were going to sell this land.
They were wealthy people. They were going to sell this land. And they were going to give the proceeds of that sale to the apostles to further their ministry. And then the sale came and a nice with, as it says there with his wife's knowledge, they kept back part of it for themselves and only took part of it and gave it to the apostles and Peter called them out on it.
So again, we say we're going to do something. But we do something else. And I know all of us. Lord, how many times did we see that when we were in the service? And that was something in, in leadership. I Learned very quickly who to trust and who not to trust. We would be told one thing, and something else would happen.
When we commit to doing things, especially as Christians, when we say we're going to do something, when we, when we put that out there, our word, we're representing God as Christians. That's what we do. We are Christians, Christ-like, we are followers of Christ, and we represent God's love in the world. So, when we say we're going to do something, and we don't do it, or we do something different, or we change it, or, you know, whatever the situation may be.
We are not putting the best foot forward and the best witness. Now, sometimes doing quote, the right thing comes with a price. It does that we have to be willing to accept. But in that sacrifice, that's where God comes in. And makes up for us. And this is what if you, you know, going back to the psalm, David, okay, David had done at this point, what God had wanted to, and there were people that rose men who rose up against him because he was doing what God told him to do.
So what do you do? You go into God and say, Hey God, I need some help here. I need your strength to be your servant. Save the son of your maid servant. But it's, this is where we have that reserve as Christians that we have, yes, there will be things that will be done and we have our, our moral standards, our ethics, our beliefs.
And then we turn around and we follow those. It may come at a price in the secular world. We may not get whatever, someone gets upset at us or they don't like that, they don't want to believe that, whatever it is. But we can turn in prayer to God and say, God help me. God knows what's going on. God's sitting there and waiting for us to come in and say.
God, I need your help. God is not only there to forgive us for everything every time, but God is also there to embolden us and to give us that great strength that he has so that we can stand, follow our word, do what we say we're going to do, no matter what the cost is. And that is so important. And what you find and what all of you have experienced out there, I know, because I've experienced it and I'm not the only one.
You find people who, they're a man or a woman of their word, they're a person of their word. You know, this, this person says that they're going to do this, it's going to get done. And those people are the ones that we gravitate towards. Those are the ones that we want as leaders. Those are the ones we want working with us and doing projects with us.
So, Remember, to be a person of your word, to do what you're going to say you do, and do it to the glory of God, and with God's help. Amen.
