God Re-Creates You to Do His Will
7 Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. 8 Then go down before me to Gilgal. And behold, I am coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait, until I come to you and show you what you shall do.” 9 When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. And all these signs came to pass that day…. 24 And Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? There is none like him among all the people.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!”… 26 Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched.
1 Samuel 10:7–9,24,26 Read More
Samuel just told Saul that he is now the king of Israel. He gives him a list of things that will happen next to prove that what Samuel says is true. Then after he sees all of this proof, Samuel doesn’t tell him how to be king. No instructions. No step-by-step. He doesn’t even give him a shred of advice.
What?!
Yep, Saul had no idea how to be king. Nobody has ever been king over Israel before. God was the king, and now it’s you, Saul. Don’t be like Moses or Joshua or Gideon or Samson, they were prophets and judges and warriors. You are the first king.
Instead of instructions, God gives Saul something much better:
9 When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God have him another heart.
That’s why Samuel told him to do whatever his hand finds to do.
This kingship is, of course, a model of our salvation. Before being able to follow a list of rules, God gave us a new heart.Our identity isn’t based on what we do, but on who God made us to be.And our actions aren’t the things that make us, but we are made children of God and therefore, we do good deeds and follow the Lord.
Saul is anointed king in front of Israel, and many more men follow him, men of valor, whose hearts were also touched by the Lord. If Saul would have demanded men come with him, or if Saul would have given them jobs, that would have been different too. God doesn’t want to boss around a bunch of robots, He wants us to respond to Him from deep inside our souls.
The apostle Paul, named after this first king of Israel (Saul), would later say that by the Holy Spirit we have the “mind of Christ.” When we surrender and believe that God is working in us, we can begin to see that we really do have the mind of Christ. As we draw near to Him, we find that doing “what our hand finds to do” is more in line with His will than we ever imagined. May we draw nearer to Him today to see what value He has in the work of our hands or be bold enough to give it up and move on to what He’s been calling us to.
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