In 1 Sam. 15:23 God told Saul that obedience to him is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of lambs.
The Lord made it clear to Saul that he wanted him to hear his voice and obey his commands and that was the way he was to worship.
The Lord made a command to Saul to slay every inhabitant of Amalek including their animals. Saul leaned on his own reasoning in the situation. Rather than do what he was told, Saul spared the king of Amalek and took the best of the spoil for himself.
The Lord took Saul’s disobedience as a rebellious act against his Lordship.
Saul said that he was going to sacrifice the sheep and oxen he had taken to the Lord but the Lord wouldn’t accept it.
Saul it seemed wanted to serve God Saul’s way. He knew better than God on how to serve God.
Saul even justified his action by saying he did everything that he was told to do but he took the best of the animals to make a big sacrifice to God. Plus Saul let the king or head of the Lord’s enemy live.
Amalek was a descendant of Esau. This lineage had no respect to God’s covenant. They were disrespectful of God’s holy ways.
By letting Amalek’s king live Saul was compromising with evil.
God’s view was that Saul by taking matters into his own hand was therefore in rebellion and operating in a witchcraft spirit. He in effect was denying God.
This story is really a parallel to the religious spirit that decides how God should be worshiped. The religious spirit comprises with things that disrespect God’s word.
Religion wants to make all kinds of obligations and ritualistic observations in preference to what God’s word has to say.
The religious spirit wants to perform feats that guise as worshiping God but in reality only exalt man’s ego.
God requires obedience to please him. Romans 6:16 tells us that obedience to the faith moves into righteousness or justification.
Obedience means attentive hearkening, complying with a command or request.
Submitting to the authority and moral conviction of the religious truth of reliance on Jesus Christ for salvation. This is obedience to the faith.
God’s way of worship is by faith in Jesus Christ! Not rituals and all kinds of humanistic effort.
2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us to demolish high minded reasoning that oppose knowing God and bringing captive the intellect to obey Jesus Christ.
In other words cast down any form of worship that is against what God’s word defines as worship.
What is obedient worship acceptable to God?
1 Peter 1:2 says that God the Father has chosen those who by his foreknowledge through sanctification (purified and made holy) of the Holy Spirit unto ( toward) obedience (hearkening to command ) and sprinkling of the blood atonement of Jesus Christ.
The only form of worship pleasing to God is through the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ and obedience to the gospel.
Those who hearken to this command will be received by God the Father and are well pleasing in his sight.
Anything added to that or taken from that is considered disobedience to God.
