God Is Not A Means To Your Purpose

We shouldn’t go to God to feel better while still doing whatever we want.   ~~~   The world uses God as a means to an end, instead of God being the end. We see next that Saul listens to this advice and says, “Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me.” One of the servants speaks up and makes a suggestion: “King Saul, I know a guy. Really good musician, man of war, man of valor, well-spoken. And the Lord is with him.” Saul knows exactly who the servant is speaking of and sends a messenger to Jesse and says, “I would like to have David for a bit in my service.” So David comes. And when Saul is being tormented, David plays, and Saul is refreshed, the harmful spirit leaves. All is well, right? What could be so wrong with this? Music therapy really does seem to be the answer. Wrong. What is happening here is Saul is using the anointed one of God as a means to an end. Once again, mercy is brought into his palace, and he rejects it. How so, Clif? Think about this for just a minute. David, the writer of many of the psalms, the sweet psalmist of Israel. David is playing these songs, these praises to Yahweh, but Saul is simply using David to get to a better mental state. Saul is having some of the greatest theology being sung over him, and he uses it to soothe his soul for a minute, but not surrender the totality of his life to the LORD. If you want to be religious, the world allows that, so long as God is used as a means to a different end other than God himself. What does this look like in our day? It looks like your faithfulness to prayer, the Bible, the church when there is a crisis in your life, but when everything simmers down, you go back to your normal routine of ignoring the LORD. You have in front of you and all around you the songs of God, the word of God, the people of God, yet you use God like a vitamin shot to make you feel better, and you will come again when you start to feel bad. You use the means of God to fulfill your great end, and that is to get you to a place where you can function again according to your will and ways. Saul’s life will play out in disaster. He will still function like a king, but it spirals and spirals out of control. And you can function in this life because you will look just like the world. You won’t think anything is wrong, but it will end in everlasting disaster. So don’t play here. Recognize that this is a dangerous game you are playing. No Saul, you are not supposed to use God as a means to feeling better so you can run His kingdom how you want to.