Day Thirty – Lenten Devotionals 2010

God’s Word: "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ^Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror ^and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” (James 1:22-24)

To obey is better than sacrifice: Aretta Loving, Wycliffe missionary, was washing her breakfast dishes when she saw Jimmy, the five-year-old neighbor, headed straight toward the back porch. She had just finished painting the back-porch handrails, and she was proud of her work.

“Come around to the front door, Jimmy,” she shouted. “There’s wet paint on the porch rails.”

“I’ll be careful,” Jimmy replied, not turning from his path.

“No, Jimmy! Don’t come up the steps,” Aretta shouted, knowing of Jimmy’s tendency to mess things up.

“I’ll be careful,” he said again, by now dangerously close to the steps.

“Jimmy, stop!” Aretta shouted. “I don’t want carefulness. I want obedience!” As the words burst from her mouth, she suddenly remembered Samuel’s response to King Saul: To obey is better than sacrifice.

How would Jimmy respond, Aretta wondered. To her relief, he shouted back, “All right, Loving, I’ll go around to the front door.” He was the only one who called her by her last name like that, and it had endeared him to her from the beginning. As he turned around the house, Aretta thought to herself, “How often am I like Saul or like Jimmy, wanting to go my own way? I rationalize, ‘I’ll be careful, Lord’ as I proceed with my own plans.”

But He doesn’t want carefulness. He wants obedience. Morgan, R. J.

Quote: You have not really learned a commandment until you have obeyed it.… The church suffers today from Christians who know volumes more than they practice.—Vance Havner