Fit for the Master's Use

Years ago I learned the importance of adding an important phrase to my prayer life. It’s a phrase I learned from Peter Lord and his Agape Ministries 2959 Devotional Plan from Titusville, Florida. It’s this simple phrase, “fit for the Master’s use.” I pray “Lord, make me fit for the Master’s use.”

I hope there will never come a time in my life and ministry when I am no longer fit for the Master’s use. I don’t want to become disqualified. Paul said, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:27, NKJV). And in 2 Corinthians 13:5-7, he challenged the Corinthians to “5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. 6 But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified. Finally, in Titus 1:16, the Bible says, “16 They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.

I don’t want to become a castaway or a stumbling block.

In 1 Samuel 15 we are told of a man who professed to have a relationship with God yet time after time, he failed to live up to his profession. He was chosen by God to an esteemed position, to be the first King of Israel. Can you imagine the honor, the dignity of the office, the prestige, and the power granted to this one man. But Saul forgot that the honor was not in the position of appointment alone, but in the privilege of the selection. That Saul was selected by Almighty God is the amazing thought. Saul was a clumsy, backward, shy, introvert. But God placed His mantle of grace on him.

Look at 1 Samuel 15:1-23 with me. Read the selected Scriptures.

Obedience is the key to the successful Christian life. Obedience brings blessing. Obedience brings joy. Obedience brings fullness and meaning to life. Obedience brings the anointing and power of God upon our lives. Obedience is absolutely essential and non-negotiable for any believer to fully know God’s touch upon his life.

Saul had lost his best friend. He lost the Lord’s blessings and he lost the kingdom. For the rest of Saul’s life, it will be a dark and winding road that leads to disqualification and eventually, his death at the very hands of the very Amakekites Saul refused to kill.

This morning, I want to share with you ten principles of obedience from 1 Samuel 15 that will make you fit for the Master’s use.

1. OBEDIENCE IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO OUR RELATIONSHIP TO AND EXPERIENCE WITH GOD, v. 1.

It all begins with a relationship, a relationship with God!

J. Vernon McGee says, “We are saved by grace, we are kept by grace, we grow by the grace of God. We are going to get to heaven by the grace of God. When we’ve been there ten thousand years, it will still be by the grace of God. But, my friend, there are great spiritual blessings today which you are going to miss if you are not obedient to Him.” Jesus told us, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Obedience offers a personal, wonderful, glorious relationship with God.

2. OBEDIENCE DOES NOT REQUIRE AN EXPLANATION FROM GOD, vs. 3-4.

Now we’ve seen this before. There are some parts of the Bible and some aspects of God that we can never fully comprehend. God says His ways are past finding out, in other words, we can never, at least in this lifetime, understand everything there is to know about God. If you could completely understand God, or if I could completely understand God, then we wouldn’t need God to be God. We would be God.

God says, “My ways are not your ways and my thoughts your thoughts. As high as the heavens are above the earth so are the thoughts of Almighty God.”

3. OBEDIENCE DEMANDS INSTANT RESPONSE, vs. 4-6.

At least in the beginning, Saul obeyed.

4. PARTIAL OBEDIENCE IS STILL DISOBEDIENCE, vs. 7 – 9.

5. WHEN OBEDIENCE GOES, THE BLESSINGS GO, v. 11 and v. 23b

6. OBEDIENCE MUST COME FROM THE HEART AND NOT FROM THE LIPS, v. 13

7. DISOBEDIENCE WILL ALWAYS BE REVEALED, v. 14

8. DISOBEDIENCE ALWAYS SEEKS TO BLAME OTHERS, verse 21 (compare with verse 9), Saul had substituted saying for doing, excuses for confession and sacrifice for obedience.

9. OBEDIENCE DOESN’T HAVE TO COVER IT’S TRACKS, vs. 15 and 21b

When Adam and Eve first disobeyed, do you remember where God found them? Hiding in the bushes. Just before Cain killed his brother Abel, do you remember what God told him? “If you do well you will be accepted. If you do not do well, sin lieth at the door.”