Obedience

The WORD today reminds me there is no making up for deliberate disobedience to God.

People make mistakes. And when we do, we try to make up for it in other ways. We find other ways and means to tell the person we are sorry, or to get the attention away from our mistake and have the person focus on the good done. This works for some mistakes, but not for others. Grave and very serious mistakes cannot easily be outweighed by make up effort. This is what God reminds us today.

No effort is enough to make up for deliberate disobedience to God.

In the first reading, we see Saul losing favor with God because he disobeyed God. Yes he did a lot of great things for God, which God sees, but he disobeyed God. He deliberately disobeyed God. He chose to ignore what God wanted him to do. He chose himself over God. And despite of all good he has done, God was displeased because Saul disobeyed him.

Why is obedience to God so important? Because it shows where our heart is. It shows who God is in our lives.

Disobeying God is not simply not following his commands. At the surface that's it, but if we look deeper, we see something else. Disobedience to God is us telling God that we love someone or something else - more than Him. Disobeying him is telling God that we love ourselves more than we love him. Disobeying God tells him we value something or someone more than we value him.

We cannot serve God just when it is convenient for us. We cannot serve God just when we want to. That is why no amount of good works can make up for disobedience, because good works can be done at our convenience but obedience is every time. Our actions reflect our hearts and our relationship with God. And he sees what is inside our hearts.

How do I treat God? Do I follow him and his ways? Or do I just do it when it is convenient for me? Do I disobey God? What does it say about my heart l?

May we be reminded of the importance of obedience to God all the time.

Father God,

Thank you for today. Thank you for another day to live. Thank you for another week. Thank you for another chance to love and experience your love. Thank you for all the blessings. Lord, sorry for the many times I disobey you. Sorry for being hard headed. Sorry for choosing myself over you. I ask that you help me be obedient to you. Help me submit and surrender to you. Help me love you more than anything and anyone. May I always choose you every time. May i always obey you, especially when it is hard and when I do no want to. Help me love and serve you the way you want me to, not the way I want to. You know that I love you, and I will do my best to live that love.  Amen.

Blessed Week!

In Christ,

-g-

Daily Readings

January 20 2020

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 January 19  |  January 21 »

Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 311

Reading 1 1 SM 15:16-23

Samuel said to Saul:
“Stop! Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night.”
Saul replied, “Speak!” 
Samuel then said: “Though little in your own esteem,
are you not leader of the tribes of Israel?
The LORD anointed you king of Israel and sent you on a mission, saying,
‘Go and put the sinful Amalekites under a ban of destruction.
Fight against them until you have exterminated them.’
Why then have you disobeyed the LORD?
You have pounced on the spoil, thus displeasing the LORD.”
Saul answered Samuel:  “I did indeed obey the LORD
and fulfill the mission on which the LORD sent me.
I have brought back Agag, and I have destroyed Amalek under the ban.
But from the spoil the men took sheep and oxen,
the best of what had been banned,
to sacrifice to the LORD their God in Gilgal.”
But Samuel said:
“Does the LORD so delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obedience to the command of the LORD?
Obedience is better than sacrifice,
and submission than the fat of rams.
For a sin like divination is rebellion,
and presumption is the crime of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the command of the LORD,
he, too, has rejected you as ruler.”

Responsorial Psalm PS 50:8-9, 16BC-17, 21 AND 23

R. (23b)  To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,
for your burnt offerings are before me always.
I take from your house no bullock,
no goats out of your fold.”
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?”
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.
“When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.”
R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.

Alleluia HEB 4:12

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The word of God is living and effective,
able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel MK 2:18-22

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.
People came to Jesus and objected,
“Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered them,
“Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast on that day.
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”