The word obedience in the Greek and Hebrew is hupakoe: and shama: meaning, to listen intently, come under authority, fully understand, and give ear to. Now the real issue is whom are we listening to and whose authority are we under? The word sacrifice in the Hebrew and Greek is zabach: and thusia: meaning, to slaughter an animal as an offering to God. Webster’s dictionary describes it as, giving up something loved for the sake of something else. This giving up of something can be a reduction of price that leaves little profit and involves loss or we can give up something of no value and receive great value for it. Therefore, there can be a positive and negative side to this action.

In the Old Testament, it tells us that, at one time; people’s sins were forgiven was by once a year the Levite priests would offer up to God burnt offerings of bulls and goats as a sacrifice for their sins. This was an acceptable way that God ordained for people to have their sins forgiven. There are many examples in the bible, just to name a few scriptures. Gen 46:1, Ex. 18:12, 11Cron.5:6, Jona.1:16 read them for yourself.

We will use1Samual chapter 15, as a story to illustrate the difference between sacrifice verses obedience. King Saul was told by God through the Prophet Samuel to go kill the Amelek people and their animals and leave nothing alive. King Saul decided to not be obedient and he saved King Agag who was king over the Amelekites and some of the prime animals in that country. When Samuel confronted Saul after his return and asked him if he had done what God commanded him to do. Saul told him he had but Samuel said, “how come I hear sheep bleating and oxen lowing in my ears.” Saul said, “The people made me save them so they could worship and sacrifice them to God.” Samuel said, “The Lord is not interested in sacrifices of burnt offerings if they are not done in obedience to His commands because, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you from being king.”

Let’s understand that God was not rejecting King Saul but He was rejecting and refusing to accept his attitude of reasoning on how he was coming to God. God never rejects any of us. It’s our lack of understanding God’s plan that keeps us from experiencing His favor and friendship.

Saul then says, “I have sinned; for I have gone beyond God‘s divine law and your words because, I was afraid of the peoples rejection and I listened to their advice. Pardon my sin and go back with me, that I may worship the Lord your God.” Samuel then said, “I will not go with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord and the Lord has rejected you from being King over Israel.”

Now as Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of Samuel’s mantle and tore it and Samuel said to him. “The lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you.

Since God is not a man who can lie, He will not change His mind about this matter.” Saul then said, “I have sinned; yet respect me and show me honor before the people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord.” Saul was only interested in saving face but had no humility and heart felt attitude to change. Now Samuel went back with Saul. However, while Saul was worshiping the Lord, Samuel went about walking in obedience to Gods command.

Samuel said, “Bring me Agag, king of the Amalekites. And he came cheerfully and thought the chance of him dying had passed.” Samuel said, “As you killed the Israelite people and made mothers childless so shall your mother be childless among woman” and Samuel hewed Agag into pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. Then Samuel went his way to Ramah and Saul went to his home in Gibeah. And Samuel saw Saul no more until his death and he felt great sorrow and grieved over the decisions that Saul had made and the Lord felt compassion and regret for Saul; for because of his disobedience, he had forfeited his kingship and calling over Israel which God intended to be his inheritance from Him

In John 4:24 Jesus makes this statement “God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” There was no truth in Saul’s worship. You notice that Samuel’s determination to fulfill God’s command did not change. While Saul was worshiping in lip service with no heart change, Samuel cut Agag into pieces in front of all the people to set an example that God is not to be mocked.

In writing this article, I was impressed with this thought. Is it possible that we in any way could be living with a spirit of witchcraft, stubbornness, iniquity and idolatry that Saul was living with? 1Samuel 16:23 tells us that, later on David was the man God picked to take Saul’s place as king over Israel. David became Saul’s armor bearer and he played the lyre and the anointing of the music because of David’s favor with God released Saul from a tormenting evil spirit that, he acquired threw his disobedient act and he was set free from it. Now I asked myself, could a spirit of witchcraft torment a person like this? This is something that should be of great concern to us who are born again believers. We need to understand that, God is merciful and loving and will forgive our disobediences but that, we can reap a consequence in our lives that is irreversible. Saul lost his inheritance, as king because, from the outward appearance it looked like he repented but, he really did not.

The dialogue between Saul and Samuel was Saul asking for forgiveness but not taking responsibility for his actions. He blamed the people for doing what he did. Saul then said, “Let’s worship the Lord together.” Samuel said, “I can’t go along with your un-repented attitude and because of your attitude you have lost your place as king over Israel.” You will notice that Saul knew the difference between Samuel’s God and his own. Saul said lets go and worship your God.

Wasn’t their God just the same? Saul’s next act was to grab Samuel’s mantel and tear it. We need to understand the importants of this act and its meaning.

This word mantel in the Hebrew is meiyl: representing a covering. However, it must be looked at as a covering over our heart where the issues of life are formed. It’s where the seed of God’s life is planted and stored in our souls or the bowels of our personality, where the Holy Spirit should be sitting as a supreme ruler ship with in us. If we are not functioning in this position then the opposite of this is the definition in the Hebrew of maal: and this can become the covering that we have over our hearts. When we have this covering, it represents an act of betrayal and of us giving up our allegiance and going beyond the divine laws of God. An example of this is found in Genesis chapter 3.

Before Adam and Eve sinned by eating from the Tree of Good and Evil, they would allow God to weave His Spirit in them and have fellowship with free access to their being. After they sinned and didn’t repent, they sowed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness of the shame of their un-repented heart. This caused them to loose their inheritance and they had to leave the Garden or protected hedge that God put around him. Garden in the Hebrew means protected hedge. It’s our choices in life because of our ignorance of God’s ways that makes us miss His perfect will. We will discuss as we go on how the spirit of witchcraft and stubbornness can get control over our lives.

Samuel told Saul that God was not a man that lied. God cannot change His mind and stray from His rock solid plan of how we can approach and function in His anointing. Samuel’s robe or mantle represents the anointing of God on our lives. Saul had lost the humble reverent attitude when approaching God and was trying to force his fleshly will to obtain God’s favor. He was living in his own self-righteousness; Samuel knew it and would not compromise his stand and be contrary to God’s way even to the point of being rejected by the king.

The perfect example of the way to approach God is found in Matt.9: 20-22. We have the story of a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. As Jesus was ministering to the people who were many, she thought in her mind if I could just touch the hem of His garment I will be healed. As she pushed her way through the crowd and touched His garment, Jesus turned around and told her that, “her faith in Him had made her well.” We see here that this woman had tenacity and confidence that she would be healed if she pushed her way through the crowd and pursued Jesus in spite of all the other people that He was ministering to. This is the attitude that must exist in us as we hunger and thirst after His presence.

Where there is no passion there is no hunger and thirsting after Him. Where there is no hunger and thirsting after Him there is no obedience.

We said earlier that at one time people had their sins forgiven by sacrificing animals as the Levites did once a year. That is what the bible tells us was the old covenant that God had with the people. In Hebrews 10:1-20 it tells us of a new covenant that we must learn to live in which gives us a confidence and power to walk in obedience to God’s ways. Unless we understand what took place in us the day we were saved, there will be no obedience and conformity to the voice of the Holy Spirit who is the maturer and guardian of our souls. God’s intent has always been to have us submit to a relationship with Him by having in our lives a heart of desperately needing and seeking Him.

Heb. 10:1-20 reads. “For the law or the Old Testament was only a hint of the new things to come. Living by the law, cannot express God’s ultimate intension because, by offering a continuance of the sacrifices of animals year after year it will never make us able to approach the presence of the Lord. It is God’s intension to clear our minds from sin and remind us that, we are not to live with a sin conscience mentality. That’s the reason why we need to stop functioning in the mentality of sacrifices because, every year the people were reminded of their sins. The sacrifices of bulls and goats are powerless to take away sin.

It says in these verses that if we have accepted Jesus sacrifice as far as offering Himself up to God for our sins that, God looks upon us as holy, consecrated and sanctified. I am convinced if the Church of Jesus Christ gets a revelation of their position of how God looks at them, there will be a revolution that will usher in the coming of the Lord.

Let’s now define these three terms according to scripture. The word Holy: in the Greek, is hagios: meaning, innocent, pure and blameless. You say how can this be. I have to deal with my shortcoming and faults every day. That’s true but, we need to remember our soul meaning, our will emotions and intellect have to be submitted to the authority of the Holy Spirit who has to remind us every day of how God sees us. Remember it says that, “the Holy Spirit will confirm to us daily, of our true position in Christ Jesus.” This is why we have to have a hunger after God. Life has meaning when we come to understand that goals are good but not for goals sake. The ultimate goal is to learn about God and have fellowship with Him. This unending process will be going on for eternity. It’s this passionate relationship that keeps us focused on our pursuit of being like God. You need to come to understand that God made us and only He can fix us when we miss His intended purposes.

Consecrated: In the Greek, the word is teleioo: meaning, to be complete in character, to set out with determination for a set and common goal. I want to keep this very simple.

Jesus ran His race and fulfilled God’s will by dying on the cross for our sins. On the cross, the last words He spoke were “It is finished.” Only He can show us the perfect way of salvation and our continuing walk of being saved from our own self-righteous agendas.

Sanctified: In the Greek, it’s hagiozo: meaning, to venerate or regard somebody with profound respect. When you venerate someone, you live in a state of awesome respect and regard for a person, who gives you a revelation of an invisible world. This makes you have a feeling of appreciation that makes you continue to run to Him over and over with a thankful heart that, at times when you see His total acceptance and how He loves us in spite of ourselves, you don’t know how to respond back to Him.

My question now is can we unwarily be submitting our thinking process to concepts that pertain to old covenant thinking by participating in a process of sacrifices to God in our own strength? We said earlier that the problem on whether we are obedient or not is who are we under authority to and whom we are listening to.

Paul the Apostle states this to the Romans in 6:13-18 “ Stop allowing yourself from being used as an instrument of doing things contrary to God’s will. Yield yourself to God as though you have a new life in you and you have been raised from the dead and live this life as a righteous being.

Mankind in his ignorance has as a difficult time accepting the fact that Jesus who the God man came out of heaven and sacrificed Himself for humanity and died a horrific death by being nailed to a cross because, He so desperately loves all of mankind who is an extension of Himself. This battle going on between spiritual forces of man trying to pull God down from heaven to make Him into his image verses God coming out of heaven and becoming man to die as a man on the cross defines the difference between Religion and Christianity.

If your readings this as a born again believer you know that unsaved people need to accept Christ into their lives to even begin to understand the Spiritual world of God. Therefore, we as Christians know that, we need to be doing the work of an evangelist and lead people to Christ. It’s easy to understand unsaved people and what they do. They’re slaves to their appetites of the carnal flesh and give in to those impulses. Therefore, it’s a no brainer in understanding them. They’re true to their calling.

If you think about this for a moment, sinners or the unsaved are addicted in their souls to sin and it has control over them. We, who know the Lord, need to become addicted to the Righteous Spirit that God put in us and continue to be nourished by His Spirit daily.

The real problem is when we as Christians who have the righteousness of God in us are still living as addicted people and are slaves to sinful thoughts, purposes and actions, it’s because we are still living with thoughts of our own self-righteousness. When this happens, it makes the sacrifice of Jesus of non-effect in our lives.

We asked the question earlier. Can we in our ignorance be participating in witchcraft, stubbornness, iniquity or idolatry unawares? The word witchcraft in the Hebrew and Greek is qucem: and pharmakeia: meaning, receiving medication from a supernatural agent, or a magical spell.

The word stubbornness is patsar: meaning, to be pressed in on, become dull or to be nagged at. The word iniquity is aven: meaning, to be vain, wicked and worship something falsely. Vanity in its many forms is nothing more than pride and having an excessive importants of oneself and it has no eternal purposes in our relationship with God. We see here that this is far more devastating then just having our own ideas of how we are to approach God. What we have here is demonic spiritual forces that can come against us and stop up our spiritual ears, so that we will not understand how to walk in obedience to the Holy Spirit and from living in this Righteous Spirit given to us by God, the day we became saved. Here are some examples how born again believers were misled to go back after they were saved and live in Old Testament covenant practices.

Gen. 3:1 tells us that the word serpent in the Hebrew is nashash: a spellbinder and a divine enchanter. He put a spell over Eve and got her to have a séance with him. In turn, she forfeited her position with God and had to leave God’s protected hedge around her.

In 11Corinthians chapter 11, Paul was rebuking these people because they had submitted to the authority of false teachings other then the Gospel that he gave them. He says, “Just as Eve was beguiled by the cunningness of the devil from a wholehearted and pure devotion to Christ, they were also being beguiled.” He goes on to say that, “Satan masquerades as an angel of light.”

In Gal.5:4-9 Paul states to these people that, “If you try to stay justified and be declared righteous with God by trying to live by laws of do’s and don’ts. You have been brought to nothing and have severed your relationship with God, because you have fallen away from receiving His grace, which is His gracious favor and unmerited blessing. We are no longer to live by the law, but we are to rely on the Holy Spirit speaking to us and living by what Jesus did for us alone and His righteousness Spirit that He put in us. If we are in Christ Jesus we are not to live by rituals like the Jewish people believing that, they had to be circumcised. We are to live through a relationship with God, which was based on love and His unmerited favor alone. He said to them that they were doing a noble job at this and wanted to know who sidetracked them into believing they had to help God out with their rituals.

He told them that, they were under the influence of an evil persuasion and this leading did not come from the heart of God. When we receive a slight inclination to error by listening to false teachings like this; the whole church becomes infected by it and does not continue to live by faith.”

Paul states in Colossians 2:16-23 “Let no one sit in judgment on you in matters of what food to eat and in regards to what special feast days to observe or certain days of worship. These things were only a shadow of things that were to come, and these things have no symbolic value. Now what does have value is found in our new covenant in Christ. Don’t let anyone act as a umpire and defraud you and make you unfit to reach your full maturity by telling you that, you have to do penance for your sins or the worshipping of dead saints that have already died or taking a stand on special visions that have happened. These are people who have become puffed up with unspiritual thoughts and have fallen in love with their own self-importance. This type of thinking does not hold fast to God’s ways of thinking and we cannot grow and be knit together in true love and fellowship.

Now if you’re saved and have died with Christ on the cross then, you should have escaped from these crude and elementary notions and teachings of externalism. Instead, you have gone back and submitted your selves to rules and regulations such as don’t handle this, don’t taste that and don’t even touch them. All these things waste away to nothing as you are doing them. When you do this you are following the precepts and doctrines of mans ideas of reaching for God. To the outward appearance, these things are popular and they are looked on as wise things to do. Instead, they only promote self-imposed rigor of devotion and a delight in self-humiliation and severity of discipline of the body, but they have no value in checking the indulgences of the flesh, which is our lower nature. These things do not honor God.” I said earlier that there is a continual theme through out all the books of the bible where man in his endeavor to be like God tries to make Him into their own image.

Paul tells timothy in 1Tim.4:1 that, “The Holy Spirit very distinctly revealed to him that in the last days, that some will depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. They will be speaking lies in hypocrisy: having their consciences seared with a hot iron. Saying things like you shouldn’t get married and don’t eat certain foods. God made everything for us to enjoy and we need to stay thankful and to interpret what the truth of the scriptures mean. Constantly put people in remembrance of God’s way of looking at things and refuse all these doctrines and old wives tales and concentrate on living as a righteous person as God sees you.” You will notice here that he says these people have departed from the faith. Therefore, they must have been born again believers if they departed. When we depart, we fall back from receiving God’s grace, which is His power to live the Christian life.

In 11Peter 3: 17-18 he states “ Let me warn you so that you are not carried away by error and fall prey to anything not subjected or obedient to the understanding of God’s commitment to you. Stay committed and firm by being determined in your mind to grow only in grace and knowledge, which is God’s undeserved favor operating in our lives. In this way we will have, spiritual strength because, we recognizing and understand Jesus who is to be both Savior and Lord over our lives.”

Jesus in Mathew 10 was talking to His disciples. He tells them “not to be afraid of anything but if they were His disciples they needed to follow His lead and be like Him, for the day will come when all the secret things going on in men’s hearts will be revealed. So what the Holy Spirit tells you in your meditating and in your prayer time be bold and talk about it with people as you travel in the market places of life. Don’t concern yourself with being physically killed for my sake, but concern yourself with people who can kill your soul and body.”

Our souls can only be killed when we are being seduced by doctrines of devils and seducing spirits meaning,

We are living in that day that Jesus was talking about. A day when the Holy Spirit is revealing to the Church of Jesus Christ (His children) things that have been buried with in themselves, meaning motives that have laid dormant for years, that have had the majority of the Church living as infants and slaves to crippling attitudes that have hindered their desires for more of God. Disobedience will continue as long as we teach about the rotten fruit behavior of our lives and not deal with the root and attitudes of our hearts.

This is what keeps people under control and keeps them reminded of their sins as the people were reminded in the Old Testament when the Levites would offer the sacrifices of animals. Unless we, who have been called to teach and preach the Gospel of love and righteousness, stay true to this message, we will be ushering many crippled Christians into the kingdom of heaven never reaching their potential in Christ. Obedience to Christ all starts with understanding our righteousness in Jesus and if we will just remind and teach with that foundation, people will flock to the Lord because, we will have learned what it means,

The spirit of law is still very strong in the Christian circles of today born again churches. I said it’s a no brainer in understanding that churches that are not teaching that Jesus is the center and meaning to life have no concept of what righteousness means. However, to still have born again believing churches preaching law, it is a constant grieving of the Holy Spirit and they are

holding back the supernatural move of God to those who are looking for it to operate in their lives.

Paul in his second letter to the Corinthian church in 3:6 makes it very clear when he states, “God qualified and called him to minister and dispense a New Covenant of salvation through Jesus Christ. Not by ministering in a written code of conduct, but by a power in him made possible by the inner working of the Holy Spirit.” The working of the Holy Spirit makes people alive while the law kills. When we are killed, it separates and pulls us away from the power we need to over come and our ability to draw close to Jesus.”

I have come to believe by my interacting with the Lord and people over these many years that, there are millions of people who desperately want a relationship with God, but not through the old format of playing church and the building of towers of Babel agendas that have nothing to do with God’s will. Let’s not get caught up with outward appearances of good music, packed sanctuaries, and loud singing etc. God’s head only turns to take notice when He hears a passion and a crying after Him. A recent survey just taken tells us that at as many as twenty million born again believers will not go back into the church setting because, there is no miraculous things taking place but the same old same old. This should not be so. The body of Christ is more then enough everywhere because; the Holy Spirit has gifted it.

Samuel confronted Saul with his disobedience and we have many ministries that teach on different aspects of our carnal nature and works contrary to scriptural ways of right and wrong. These things must be taught to remind us of Satan‘s plan to blind and addict us to fleshly cravings. These things if we listen and allow the Holy Spirit to check us out and see if we have any wicked way in us is the process of growing but, we need to heed the Lord and repent meaning, change our minds and follow His leading.

This is why so many Pastors are having continual counseling sessions with many people and they never change. It’s the anointing of God in our lives that breaks these strongholds that the Devil may have in us. It’s the holding power of God through righteous thinking that makes the anointing work. Just this last Sunday at our dinner table with part of my family, my daughter in law was relating to me that the church she was attending with her teenage boys is having a huge drive on building a twenty five thousand seating sanctuary. However, she was heartsick and searching for answers because, the teaching was on tithing and giving to God’s work, but it was being taught with guilt ridden tactics and condemning rhetoric, using Old Testament concepts as a base of the teaching.

She brought her neighbor with her because, she has just been saved and she has a hunger for God and she trusts my daughter-law.

It disturbed me that she asked me the question. “How can I continue to go to this church with my children and take other people with me that I witness to during the week when I feel that I have to measure up to a system of Old Testament teaching to be accepted and to belong in fellowship with these people.” We need to stop soliciting for people to be a part of our fellowship and being taught our personal denominational beliefs. We need to start teaching how righteous we are in Christ so we can make people free to make choices with out be manipulated and feel obligated with guilt and know the difference between condemnation and chastisement.

We can see that Samuels’s spirit did not compromise in fulfilling God’s command and he hewed Agag the king to pieces in front of the people as an example that, this Christian life is a matter of life and death and no compromise can be tolerated. Agag the king represents a spirit of anti-christ type teaching that cannot be tolerated and is a demonic influence on the hearts and minds of God’s anointed people. Some of the gospel preaching and denominationalism going on in Christian television is a disgrace and should not be so. These people love God, but have not the true knowledge of God’s ways and we need to forgive them for they don’t know what their doing. It’s only by experiencing God’s grace that can break the demonic influences that have brought many of the body of Christ into bondage.

Let me make this clear, as I have heard this from many people. I am not giving anyone a license to sin. Where more disobedience abounds, more of Christ’s grace is available so we can walk in obedience to God’s commands. If you believe that what you have heard in this article is a license to sin, you have missed it all together. God who is perfect love says, “While you were still sinning and living out of a relationship with me I decided to come out of heaven and become human and die for you, so I could meet you where you were at and understand your needs and wants. I want nothing from you other then for you to allow me to totally restore you to a place of safety and wholeness at my side. I gave you my most loved and prized possession by giving up my only begotten Son so that you could be set free from demonic influences that have kept you away from Me Far to Long.”