Hi again! Today’s story is from 1 Samuel 15.

God had made Saul king over the Israelites. He ruled over them and led them into many battles. BUT, Saul kind of forgot about God and made some statues to celebrate how wonderful he was and what a good job he had done defeating their enemies.

Finally, one time, God told Saul to go fight the Amalekites and to destroy every person and every thing. So Saul took his army and they went and defeated the Amalekites and they destroyed *most* of the people and *most* of the things. But is that what God told them to do?

Nope.

God sent Samuel to talk to Saul.

When Samuel got there, Saul said, “Look! We defeated the Amalekites, just like God said!”

But Samuel said, “You didn’t obey God?! You didn’t defeat every person and you kept some of their animals and money and things!”

Saul said, “Well…we were going to make sacrifices and offerings to God with all the stuff!” (That means they were going to give the stuff to God).

But Samuel said, “Does God want gifts as much as He wants you to obey? You disobeyed God, so you rejected Him and so now God has rejected you as king.”

God was going to bring someone else to be king now, because Saul didn’t listen to God.

What matters most to God isn’t that we go to church, pray, read the Bible, or tell other people about Him. Those are all really good things…but what God really wants is for us to obey all He’s told us. To obey God we need to love Him and love others. In the book of Luke 11:28, Jesus told some listeners, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

And in James 1:22 of the Bible it says, “Don’t just listen to the God’s word. You have to do what it says or else you’re just pretending.” If we really love God, we will do what He says.

God told Saul exactly what He wanted him to do, but Saul only half-way obeyed. When we really trust God, we can always obey Him all the way, because we know He knows what is best for us.

Thanks for joining us today. Love to you all!