Fearing people

Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD." – 1 Samuel 15.24-25

Saul’s lack of leadership ability only gets worse and worse. His disobedience and stubbornness and rebellion and self will are well know by now.

But here we see another problem as we was confessing his sin and trying to explain why he did what he did.

‘I feared the people and obeyed their words.’

Be more afraid of what people think than what God thinks is a serious problem. Letting men influence us more than God influences us is sin.

And still I suspect most of deal with that fear at times.

I think the problem is that we have to deal with man right here and now. We have to deal with their disappointed looks or angry faces or mean words or their rejection right now.

God is ‘invisible’ for now. It is easy to feel like we can deal with Him and those repercussions later.

In other words we are in the same old trap of looking at what we can see instead of looking at the invisible. It doesn’t make much sense because we know that the things we see are only temporary and the things we can’t see are eternal.

We need to keep our eternal focus in mind if we are not going to fear men. The Bible tells us that with Jesus on our side we do not need to fear what man can do to us.

We need not fear man if our focus is on the eternal.