It was a dark time in Israel. Scripture says, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 17:6). That means they made decisions about life based on their feelings and desires.
1 Samuel 8:4-5-4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”
How often is that our argument regarding something we want, especially when it is outside of God’s will for our lives? We want to be like everyone else. We read in verses 12-20 that Samuel knew it was going to be downhill from there. The Israelites were rejecting God. Listen, the minute you decide you want to be like everyone else you have just turned your back on God. Samuel knew they were going to be heading the wrong direction. He told them things were going to get so bad with a king in place that they would be crying out to God to relieve them from the king.
Look at verses 19 and 20: 19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.” Fight their battles? Hadn’t God always gone before them to fight their battles? 1 Samuel 8:7 7 And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. When you reject God it doesn’t matter who is leading you. It’s not going to work.
God told Samuel to grant the people’s request. Sometimes God’s greatest judgment is giving us what we ask for! Saul showed time and time again as he did whatever he thought the situation called for rather than consulting God that he was living to do what was right in his own eyes. The result was that God rejected Saul as king and chose another, David, a man after God’s own heart rather than one who lived to do what was right in his own eyes (I Sam. 15:23).
Once we let our emotions, our fear, our anxiety, our desire to win something, lead us instead of God’s Word, and we decide to do what we think is best without consulting God, it takes us to a place where we are in direct violation of God’s commands, and we will lie or do anything to try to cover it up including throwing other people under the bus. And when we are more concerned with what the crowd thinks that what God thinks we are in deep trouble.
I’m not saying everyone doesn’t have the “right” to live the way they want, but what I am saying is that living the way you want, doing what is right in your own eyes, doesn’t make you right with God. There is a standard for truth and righteousness, and it doesn’t change from situation to situation. It doesn’t evolve with the culture. God has set the standard, and the only way for us to live in harmony with Him and in true peace with each other is for us to submit, obey, and follow Him completely.
God is calling us away from impulsive, selfish, earthly, fleshly, lustful, greedy living. He is calling us to move away from doing what is right in our own eyes and is asking for His people, His church, the blood-bought redeemed children of God to once again treasure and value and seek out with passion obedience to His standards and obedience the way of life that is right in God’s eyes.
Attempting to live well in God’s eyes,
Pastor Melissa
Teays Valley Church of God
6979 Teays Valley Rd, Scott Depot, WV 25560
Melissa@tvcog.org
304-757-9222
www.tvcog.org
