The fruit of a Religious Spirit

1Samuel 2:29 "Why, Eli, do you honor your sons more than me by letting them fatten themselves on the best parts of all the sacrifices my people offer to me?"

Yesterday, we seen what a religious spirit looked like in Eli's treatment of Hannah as she prayed in the temple. Today in I Samuel 2, we see the fruit of a religious spirit versus the fruit of a humble, dependent spirit that seeks after God.

As the chapter opens, we read about Hannah rejoicing in the Lord in her prayer after God granted her a son. Remember, she actually offered this son, Samuel, back to the Lord in the sense of a firstfruits offering. God then blessed her with five more children. As Samuel grows up serving in the Temple, we see God's blessing and favor upon his life. However, we see the opposite of that in Eli's household...the spirit of religion.

In I Samuel 2:12-17, we see how Eli's sons (who were priests that worked in the temple) were showing disrespect for God's house by putting their own appetites and desires first before their service unto God in the eating of meat that was offered as sacrifices for the sins of the people. It didn't stop there, they also were sleeping with the women that worked at the entrance of the temple. Even worse, their father (the High Priest) basically slapped their hands and refused to discipline his sons.

Self-indulgence and self-centeredness is characteristic of a religious spirit. It may look good and "spiritual" on the outside. It may even know how to say all the right things in order to deceive others and even him or herself, but it is far from the "deny yourself, pick up the cross, and follow me" spirit that characterizes the true disciple of Christ.

As we see in this story, God detests a religious spirit and will judge it every time. Read what God told Eli, "I, the LORD God of Israel, promised in the past that your family and your clan would serve me as priests for all time. But now I say that I won't have it any longer! Instead, I will honor those who honor me, and I will treat with contempt those who despise me. Listen, the time is coming when I will kill all the young men in your family and your clan, so that no man in your family will live to be old. You will be troubled and look with envy on all the blessings I will give to the other people of Israel, but no one in your family will ever again live to old age. Yet I will keep one of your descendants alive, and he will serve me as priest. But he will become blind and lose all hope, and all your other descendants will die a violent death.When your two sons Hophni and Phinehas both die on the same day, this will show you that everything I have said will come true." [I Samuel 2:30-32. GNB]

Samuel, however, the fruit of Hannah's spirit, grew and walked in the favor of God and the people. Eventually, he became the High Priest of Israel that was used of God to bring David to the throne of Israel.

I don't know about you, but my prayer today is "God let me possess a broken and a contrite heart, O God, which you will not despise." [Psalm 51:17, paraphrase]

-Pastor Randy