Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.
When the people of Israel saw that the sons of Samuel were not righteous like their father, they decided to take things into their own hands. They look to the nations around them to seek alternatives. They asked for a king to rule over them. While in fact, God is their King. Instead of going to their King to ask for a solution, perhaps even for new judges, they rejected their King and planned to replace Him with another king.
When we reject God as King over our lives, the throne still needs to be occupied. We will choose another to sit on it, so that we might serve the new king and subject our lives to it. Most of the times we allow convenience to be enthroned in our lives. It simply means, whenever decisions are called for, we will choose the convenient way out. While convenience will certainly sometimes be influencing our decision making, but it must not be the primarily consideration. Convenience can compel us to break laws, to compromise on our values.
How do we know convenience is on the throne of our lives? Do we pursue quick results over quality of work? Do we choose to obey God only if it does not involve any efforts? Do we worship Him only when are free, after allowing other things to fill our time schedule? Convenience is one of the driving forces behind technology and medicines. As long as there are people to pursue convenience as their priority, faster and more advance technology will emerge. Faster travel, faster internet speed, etc. More efficient pharmaceutical drugs will continue to be manufactured. All these perhaps, at the expense of healthier lifestyle and healthier body in the long term.
For convenience sake, natural resources, drugs, laws of the land, even relationships can be abused. Any abuse of good gifts from God will have consequences. It will have adverse effects on lives, families, society at large or even nations.
It’s about time we should evaluate our ways, our attitude towards God and the good gifts of God. Search our hearts and be honest with ourselves – is God on the throne of our lives? Or Convenience is. It’s time to dethrone the god of Convenience! It’s time to choose to enthrone Jesus as King over our lives!
- Confess and repent from bowing down to the god of convenience in our lives. Ask the Lord to forgive us as a nation for yielding to the temptation of quick fix at the expense of long-term welfare.
- Spend time praise and worship Jesus and enthrone Him over every perceivable area of your life.