Bold As A Lion (Part 2)

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.- II Timothy 1:7

True freedom lies in being bold. Those who are fearful are not free. The devil is happy to see critics run you down, yet you allow them. The devil likes it when you are always afraid of what people will say because he knows it hinders you from following God totally.

In I Samuel 10, a wonderful, handsome, tall and gifted young man by the name, Saul became the first king of Israel. God chose him, and he was accepted and celebrated as the king in the land, but he was chicken-hearted. He fumbled and failed God woefully. On the long run, he consulted the witch of Endor and ended his life as a failure. What a tragedy!  God had sent Saul to a battle that was divinely ordained. God reminded him of how the Amalekites attacked His people on their way to Canaan and subsequently commanded King Saul to utterly destroy the Amalekites.

Though victorious soldiers usually take spoils, God said, “This is not the time to take spoils, destroy them all and all they have. I am making you an instrument of weapon to avenge my people.”

King Saul fought the Amalekites as commanded by God but he did selective obedience. He brought the king of Amalek, the best of the sheep and oxen. He thought he was smarter than God. He did not even bother to report back to the prophet when he came back from the battle which shows he lacks accountability. The humble Saul who apparently started out well became a woeful failure, he became proud because of the people’s opinion. He lived his life pleasing others and not God. Consequently, God spoke to Samuel about how He regretted choosing Saul as King over His people. May God never regret over you in Jesus name. Instead of the king being remorseful and repentant when Samuel confronted him, he justified himself by giving a reason for his failure. He was busy shifting blame, trying to dodge responsibility and accountability. What was really the problem of King Saul? He knew the right thing to do quite alright, but he allowed the opinion of the people to hinder him from obeying God’s instructions completely. Saul was a man who loved to feed sumptuously on the opinion of men at the expense of the commandment of God. He was judged by God and removed from being king over God’s people, Israel.