Obey God

1 Samuel 15:22
22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

We have all sacrificed part of our lives for the calling of God. We change our life styles and become a new creature. It is sacrificing ourselves and becoming Christ like. That is all well and good until we do not do something that God sends us to do. At that point we have disobeyed God. Thank of a child, if you ask them to do a choir and they do it right away, we are more compelled to reward them. However, if they refuse to do the choir we have asked, we withdraw thier reward and sometimes even punish them. It is the same way with God. He asks us to go pray for someone and we refuse, we could lose out on a blessing and at times his punishment is to remove his protection. He never stops loving us the same way you do not stop loving the disobedient child, but we have to learn a lesson. I would much rather obey God and recieve a blessing than to disobey him and face punishment and be taught a lesson.