reading

ENDORSEMENTS

“Chris Humphrey embodies true worship from every very fiber and core of his being unlike anyone I personally know! He is a passionate pursuer of the Presence of God during mundane times of driving down the highway in his car all the way to the twenty- four to fifty-hour Burn events he hosts every month in Northern California! Many times he does not leave the room for the entire period! I cannot think of a better heart and life to model and articulate the values, principles, and testimonies from a life lived in the perpetual place of worship!”

—SEAN FEUCHT

Founder of Burn 24-7

“Chris is one of the most humble, authentic, and passionate men that I know. His life and testimony are a beautiful picture of the radical and transforming love of God. Chris is a true father to a broken generation and has an incredible anointing to raise up spiritual sons and daughters. His life message will inspire and challenge you to fall deeper in love with Jesus and to be a whole-hearted, sacrificial servant of the gospel.”

—DAVID FRITCH

Burn 24-7

“Chris Humphrey has a heart of David! One that has the courage to serve the purpose of God in his generation, marked by the raw reality of God. And, in his journey, he offers fresh language to the hungry pilgrim.”

—ROGER JOYNER

Prayer Leader

“Chris Humphrey has been a father to my life, a man of prayer and faithfulness to the call of God. I believe these pages you read will truly impart that. The years sown in tears will see its fruit in this generation.”

—BRIAN BARCELONA

One Voice Student Missions

“Chris Humphrey is the definition of what a whole-hearted radical lover of God is! He has a contagious passion that draws people into the glorious Presence of The Lord. When you read this book you will experience the love that has made Chris a reckless abandoned worshiper of God!”

—JARROD McEACHRON

Student Ministries Director

Harvest Church, Elk Grove CA

For the last few years I’ve had the joy of knowing Chris and watching God move through his life. He is a man on fire; a fire that is mingled with humility and integrity. That fire and passion will be imparted as you journey through the chapters of this book.

—CALEB KLINGE

Senior Pastor

New Life Christian Center, Novato CA

This book paints a picture of the true heart of God and His never-ending love for us. We are created for God’s pleasure! Chris Humphrey’s life is proof that God takes joy in each of us as we take joy in abiding in His love and live a life of worship.”

—STEPHEN STOCKLIN

Burn 24-7 Seattle/Port Orchard

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1499377859

E-book ISBN-13: 978-1483528007

Published by

Chris and Alycia Humphrey

Burn 24-7 Sacramento

Contact the author at chrish@theburn247.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or any other – except for brief quotations, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Yvonne Parks at www.pearcreative.ca

Interior design and typesetting by Katherine Lloyd at www.theDESKonline.com

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART ONE: TRUE WORSHIP

Chapter 1: THE HEART OF WORSHIP

Chapter2: WHO DO YOU WORSHIP?

Chapter3: THE OBJECT OF OUR AFFECTION

Chapter4: WORSHIP IN THE WILDERNESS

Chapter 5: SWEET SMELLING FRAGRANCE

Chapters6: THE FRUIT OF WORSHIP

Chapter 7: ABIDING IN THE VINE

PART TWO: THE END TIME ARMY

Chapters8: THE DAVIDIC GENERATION

Chapters9: LEGACY FOR ALL GENERATIONS

Chapter 10: THE BURNING ONES

Chapter 11: THE BELOVED BRIDE

Chapter 12: WARRING FROM HIS PRESENCE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I truly want to give special thanks to my wife, Alycia. She is the greatest gift from God that I have received in this life. Thank you, my love, for standing by me through every trial. Thank you for encouraging me through this journey. I am so thankful that you said yes to marrying a man who was fresh out of prison. You saw in me what I never imagined in myself. You took a risk marrying me and your risk has helped me to become a better man! I love you so much.

My mom and dad, James and Felicia! You have made this book possible through being an amazing family who has seen me go through the crazy things and you never gave up on me. Thank you for believing in me. Mom, thank you for always demonstrating unconditional love. Dad, thank you for your example of an honest, hard-working man. James and Felicia, thank you for investing into my life.

I would also like to thank Sean Feucht and my entire Burn 24-7 family. Sean, your crazy, radical life has inspired me to greatness. My Burn family, you always impart hope to me as I hear all the radical stories of what God is doing in your cities worldwide through your simple yes to Burn night and day.

Nancy King and Justina Harston. Your work and awesome editing skills took this project beyond what I was capable. Your hard work has not gone unnoticed. You are both greatly appreciated.

Last of all, and more the inspiration behind it all, Jesus! He is my beautiful Lord. His gracious gift of His Abiding Presence has inspired every one of us to live a life full of His goodness. Thank you so much, Lord Jesus. It is worth every bit of whatever we have to walk through in this life to catch just one glimpse of Your Eternal Glory. I love you so much, Lord.

Introduction

MY STORY

You are about to embark on a journey, but before you go any further, I want to share my story with you. Perhaps an inside look into what I have walked through as a worshiper of God will help you grasp what God is saying to you. Within these pages you will read both deep scriptural revelation regarding the life of worship and personal experiences and examples that I believe will help you on your journey. My prayer is that, as you read through this book, God will take you into the same places He took me as I wrote my heart for all to see.

My story is quite different than what you might think. Unlike many of my contemporaries, I was neither raised in revival nor mentored by a great father in the church. In fact, I wasn’t even raised in the house of God. The truth is that my past is riddled with excessive drug use and experimentation with witchcraft and New Age spirits. My experiences took me down a path of extreme darkness that only Jesus could deliver me from. Some of my closest friends during this period of my life are now either dead or serving life in prison. My testimony does not include being born into the great revival that is currently being poured out on the church. Nonetheless, every testimony carries within it the prophetic DNA to reveal Jesus Christ. Mine is a story of one who has emerged from the place of obscurity to reveal the life of a true worshiper.

Upon surrendering my life to Christ at the age of nineteen, I jumped, head first, into a life of chasing after God. Even now, I can remember the glorious revelation of touching His Presence the moment that I gave my life to Jesus. I knew, in the inner chambers of my heart, that this experience was the reason for my existence. Even in the early stages of my life in Christ, my soul frequently caught glimpses of the glory of this life of worship. These experiences marked my soul for an ever-unfolding journey to becoming a true worshiper.

At the age of twenty-one, I was invited to move from my then home in Sacramento, California to Portland, Oregon. Even though accepting this offer meant leaving behind everything I knew and all my comforts, I didn’t hesitate for one moment. As a zealous young Christ-follower, my soul exploded with joy at the thought of abandoning everything to pursue the life of a laid-down lover of Jesus. Little did I know, the next eight years would be the most lonely, difficult season of my life. I thank God that I can now look back and see that, while unspeakably painful, everything I went through during that time was an integral part of God’s plan to fashion me into a true worshiper. Much like David, who was brought up under the harsh leadership of Saul, I found myself under very legalistic and condemning church leadership. Having been relentlessly tormented by the spirit of condemnation, I was desperate just to know that I was loved. This desperation forced me into the place of worship and prayer where I would spend hours at a time searching to catch even a glimpse of God’s Presence just to feel His acceptance.

Trust me when I tell you that this season was a “backside of the desert” experience for me. During the late ‘90s and early 2000s, I had no knowledge of anything that was happening in the church as a whole. I was stuck in my own little world struggling to hold on to my faith, even struggling with the temptation to take my own life. It wasn’t that I didn’t long for connection with the body of Christ, but I had spent years under the unhealthy, incorrect teaching that I didn’t need anything more than God and the Bible. Still again, I look back over these experiences with a heart of gratitude! God knew what He was doing with me just like He knew that the spears being cast at David were developing him into a man after God’s own heart.

Was this God’s “perfect plan” for my life? I cannot answer that accurately. Such knowledge is just too much for us to grasp. Was it god’s perfect plan for the Hebrews to be brutally afflicted by the Egyptians until their cry of suffering finally reached the throne of God? Was it god’s perfect plan for six million Jews to be exterminated during World War II before the Allies stepped in and helped Israel to become a nation in 1948? These are all questions that cannot be answered through intellectual understanding. All I can say is that something happens through the suffering of a human soul that produces a desperate, seeking heart that can only be comforted within the throne room of heaven. This is exactly what happened in me during my time in Portland. A life of worship was being developed in the furnace of affliction.

After eight years of living under the heavy hand of condemnation, I finally left this unhealthy environment and found myself in a vicious cycle of drug abuse. I eventually ended up facing ten years of federal prison time. By the grace of God, I served only nine months of a sixteen-month sentence. I can boldly say that this was the best thing that has ever happened to me! It was behind the walls of Folsom Prison where I found true freedom to worship God like I never knew I could. In a tiny chapel with sometimes only five men in attendance, the heavens would open up and the Glory of God would take me into places where flesh and blood cannot go.

For me, worship is so much more than hip songs and trendy church services. Worship is my life source. During the nine months I spent in prison, I learned to abide in the secret place of the Most High God. Through countless hours spent in the place of worship I have discovered an intimacy with God that simply cannot be found elsewhere. His dwelling place has now become my dwelling place. Through worship I have found freedom from years of bitterness and rejection, drug and pornography addiction, fear and insecurity, and the list could go on and on. Whether in a room all by myself or in an auditorium packed with thousands of other worshipers, I now know how to access the realm of heaven. Heaven is so much more than the place we go to when we die. Heaven is god’s dwelling place, the place where His Presence dwells with millions of angels worshiping around His throne. Every single person has instant access to this glorious place—we need only to seek Him by faith. Through finding this place in worship, I have become addicted to the Presence of God! Nothing else satisfies but Him.

What follows is a labor of love that has taken me three and one half years to complete. Even as you read, you will see a progression of my own growth through the place of worship. Worship is my life and I now share my life with you just as our Lord Jesus shared His life with us. May my life become an open book to reveal to you the person of Jesus Christ:

Father, I pray that these pages will reveal Your heart for a generation. Your heart seeks for worshipers, and may these worshipers arise in this last hour and be on the front lines of the End Time Army that you are revealing Yourself through! Amen

Chapter 1

THE HEART OF WORSHIP

But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24 NKJV).

How many of us know why we were created? Every one of us has a yearning in our soul to find the purpose of our existence. That yearning has driven many people to achieve beyond what mankind ever thought was possible. Explorers set sail on treacherous seas, discovering new territory and conquering other nations. Others have climbed to the tops of the tallest mountains in the world. Perhaps one of the greatest feats of all was mankind’s entrance into outer space, even to walk on the face of the moon.

Yet in all these wonderful accomplishments, I believe that mankind has discovered nothing more than a purpose for life, but has fallen quite short of discovering the purpose of life. God has placed purpose inside the soul of every human being and, like water in a deep well, that purpose needs to be drawn out.

Let me quickly define the true purpose of our life and existence. The answer that billions of souls since the beginning of time have been looking for can only be found in a personal relationship with the One who created us. Revelation 4:9-11 gives us a vivid picture for what happens continually before the throne of Almighty God. The words of the twenty-four elders around the throne tell us the key that unlocks the purpose of all creation, and the reason of our existence:

The four and twenty elders fall down before him ... and worship him that liveth for ever and ever ... saying, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, AND FOR THY PLEASURE THEY ARE AND WERE CREATED” (vv. 10-11 KJV emphasis mine).

As we can see clearly from this key Scripture and from many others that we will look into later, we were created for the purpose of worshipping the Lord God Almighty, and it is in this life of worship that our God takes pleasure in those He created. For the rest of this book, with the help of the Holy Spirit, I will explore what this life of worship entails.

WHAT IS WORSHIP?

Unfortunately, in the church today, when you speak of “worship”, the first thing that comes to people’s mind is a slow style of music. For some people what comes to mind may be the first part of a church service when everyone sings along and some even lift their hands. We even hear reference to different styles of “worship” which refer to the different styles of music played. Please do not get me wrong; music does play a huge part in the life of worship. There is much scriptural evidence of its importance. There is even a whole book in the Bible called Psalms which literally translated is “songs”, but worship is so much more! To get an understanding of worship, we must intimately know the God who created us, the One who formed us, shaped us, and fashioned according to His great love.

Jesus told the woman at the well,

You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:22-24 NKJV).

The truth that Jesus was revealing to this woman is what has always been in the Father’s heart. God longs for intimacy with His children whom He created. It has always been His desire to reveal Himself to us. In the beginning, God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Before sin entered into the world, man was able to dwell in the fullness of God’s Presence and give Him the glory and worship that He is worthy to receive. Scripture tells us in Psalm 8:4-6,

What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet (NKJV).

The Lord created man and clothed him in His own glory. Because of this he was free to look upon the face of God in all His glory and bow before Him in worship. In fact, the Hebrew word for worship is “hawah” which literally means “to bow down, to do obeisance.” It alludes to an act of respect before one’s superior and essentially signifies submission. Those who used this mode of salutation fell upon their knees and touched the ground with their foreheads. Now let us take a look into its Greek counterpart, “proskyneo,” which is defined almost exactly the same as the Hebrew; the interesting key is that the literal translation of this word is “to kiss”—which alludes to physical intimacy.¹

Worship, from the purest biblical definition, I believe only occurs in the manifest Presence of God which has become available to all humanity in the revelation of Jesus Christ. The term “revelation” simply means “to reveal or unveil”. Colossians 2:9 says, “For in him [Christ] dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (KJV). It also says in Colossians 1:15-19:

[Christ] Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible ... all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence. FOR IT PLEASED THE FATHER THAT IN HIM SHOULD ALL FULLNESS DWELL (KJV emphasis mine).

Everything that we desire to know about God is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. The infinite, God chose to reveal Himself to us through His Son. We do not encounter His Presence through following a set of rules, but through personal relationship with the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It is as Jesus begins to open our eyes in this relationship that true worship will become our way of life.

Jesus says in John 14:21:

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and MANIFEST Myself to him” (NKJV emphasis mine).

We must understand that there is a difference between the omnipresence of God and His manifest Presence. Israel, when they were in the wilderness, had the cloud by day and the fire by night abiding continually above the tent of meeting. For them this was evidence that god’s Presence was with them. Yet there were times when the glory of God manifested among them and brought terror into their hearts, and we read that they all fell face down before the Lord in worship. Again, I will say that worship is not something we do from within ourselves, but it is the only natural response to the unveiling of God’s Presence. Today, we who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are assured that the Holy Spirit abides within every one of us. His Presence is continually with us. God Himself says, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). The Holy Spirit is God’s promise to all who give themselves wholly to Him. He is our helper and our very present help in time of need. Yet, for all those who truly hunger for more of God and have a deeper yearning in their soul to touch Him, He will manifest His glory. Those who long for His manifest Presence are the ones who will experience the worship and intimacy with the Father that Jesus died on the Cross and rose again for us to have. These are the worshipers that the Father is seeking for Himself.

THE WORSHIPER’S HEART

Everything that God has done since the fall has been centered around His plan of redemption: the giving of the Torah through Moses, the sin offerings, the promised Son of David and all the writings of the prophets. These all pointed to the coming of the Messiah, and His death and resurrection that would bring redemption through His blood to all nations, not just Israel. His plan has always been to redeem sinful man! There is a sound that proceeds out of the hearts of the redeemed that gets God’s attention. The heart of a worshiper walks in the revelation of what Christ has redeemed them from. It has utter dependence upon God and walks fully aware that Christ in us is the hope of glory, and apart from Him we can do nothing. I write these words to you as someone who has been redeemed from the pit of destruction, not just a researcher of this topic. I share my heart with you as someone who has pressed past the forces of hell to reach the feet of Jesus and worship Him.

In Luke 7:36-50, we read the story of a sinful woman that came with an expensive alabaster jar of perfume. She stood weeping behind Jesus with her tears falling upon His feet. This woman then wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair, kissed them, and poured out the perfume on them. Although Luke does not mention this woman’s name, we can look at John 12:1-8, which tells of a very similar account and identifies the woman as Mary of Bethany. Though we cannot prove these to be the same incident, I believe that we can glean from them both in the same inspiration of what the Spirit is saying.

In Luke’s account we see that the Pharisee who was hosting this gathering for Jesus began to make judgments in his heart against this act of worship. Jesus, knowing his thoughts, tells a parable:

Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. Then He turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:41-48 NIV).

In verse 47, Jesus makes a very bold and profound statement. He says, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little” This statement has always baffled me. Is it possible for some to love God more than others? Can two people who have equally surrendered their lives to Jesus have different levels of love in their heart for God? If this is so, how is that love measured? We can t find this out until we understand the use of this word “love” in this Scripture. According to the Vines Greek Dictionary, there are two different Greek words for the one verb “love” in our English language. One word is “phileo”, which simply means “tender affection” and can also signify the kindness that one person shows to another. The other Greek word is “agapeo” or “agape” which is, in the most direct form, “To express the essential nature of God.”² In this passage, Jesus is stating that the love expressed here is “agape” love. In this act of worship, this woman in Luke 7 was expressing the very nature of God. It was a kind of love that does not exist inside of the human heart, a selfless love. Jesus says in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (NKJV). The “agape” love can only come from the Father. Romans 5:5 tells us, “The love of God [agape] has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (NKJV).

This woman’s act of worship GOT GOD’S ATTENTION! Even though she walked in the very depths of sin and darkness, she responded to the Presence of God by faith. Hebrews 11:6 tells us, “Without Faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Faith always results in action. James 2:26 says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” I cannot tell you how many times I have questioned in my heart how, during a powerful church service when the Presence of God falls like a blanket, many people walk away complaining. I have personally heard complaints after a move of God such as “I wish the Pastor would do this,” or “I wish we could have had this song or that song”. These people altogether missed what God had to give them because they did not respond to the Presence of God in faith.

We see this in Luke 7 with this woman and Simon the Pharisee. Simon was sitting in the Presence of God in the flesh, yet he sat criticizing the way Jesus did things. Yet this sinner woman responds to the Presence of God by faith. Her response so touched the heart of God that, I believe, He imparted His very nature into her. She received, in that instant, forgiveness of her many sins and, to fill that deep void that sin once occupied, God imputed His “agape” love. Romans 5:20-21 tells us,

God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. So just as sin entered into all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in life through Jesus Christ our Lord (NLT).

Those who have a deeper need receive more of God’s grace to sustain them. His love was then flowing from the heart that was once darkened through sin. God found Himself the kind of true worshiper in this woman that He earnestly desires and seeks after. Religious people will always complain about the extravagant worship that comes from those who give more of themselves at the feet of Jesus.

We see this exact situation in the extravagant worship of Mary of Bethany. When she poured out her offering before the Lord, some of the disciples complained in the same way, saying it was too much! In fact, Mary is also known in Scripture as the one who sat at the feet of Jesus while Martha, her sister, was busied about with service. Mary desired to be as close to Jesus as possible, more than to be busied about in ministering to others. Martha even complained to the Lord about her sister sitting at His feet. Jesus responded to Martha with a loving rebuke. He told her that Mary had chosen the better part that would not be taken away from her (see Luke 10:41-42). Many times the true worshipers will be mocked and ridiculed for their desperate willingness to throw everything aside and minister to the Lord without restraints. Please do not get me wrong; I am not advocating laziness or disorderly conduct. I am simply stating that there are times that we must discern when the Spirit of God is drawing us into His dwelling place for an intimate time of worship. A heart of worship will always be willing to throw caution to the wind to spend time with the lover of their soul.

The woman in Luke 7 and Mary of Bethany are beautiful examples of extravagant worshipers. I don’t believe it is by any coincidence that the most unlikely sinful woman and Mary of Bethany have become noted together as the most intimate worshipers in the New Testament. Whether these two women are the same does not matter. What matters is their extreme heart to worship the Lord in a manner that got heaven’s attention! This is the heart of worship - to get heaven’s attention!

Is this your sole desire? Are you seeking after God as if for lost treasure? If Jesus were standing before you, would you be willing to throw caution to the wind no matter how angry those around you became? If you have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, then you are well on your way to receiving this heart of worship. The Father is seeking for true worshipers, and true worshipers are seeking only for Him!

A MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

There are so many examples in the Word of God of individuals who lived in worship to the Lord. The more we study the lives of these men and women of God, the more we will begin to see a mirror of how we should live in whole-hearted devotion to manifesting God through our life of worship.

There is one man in Scripture that stands out among them all (besides Jesus, of course). I say this for one simple reason: God is the One who chose him to stand out as such! In 1 Samuel 13:14, Samuel tells King Saul, “The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart” (NKJV). This man was David.

Do we truly understand that God is seeking after us much more than we seek after Him? 2 Chronicles 16:9 tells us, “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the Earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.” Psalm 14:2 says, “The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.” In the garden of Eden, God came looking for Adam, and we even hear His heart cry “Adam, where are you?” Jesus declares to us, “For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10 KJV). Lastly, we can look at our key Scripture John 4:23, “The true worshipers ...are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”

What is it that God is looking for? What is it about David’s life that got God’s attention? The best way to see this is to look at David’s life in comparison to the life of King Saul. In 1 Samuel 13, Samuel gives this prophetic word to Saul about God seeking a man after His own heart, after he had failed to keep the specific instruction given to him.

The Philistines had gathered with a great army of thirty thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen, and people as numerable as the sand of the seashore in multitude. Saul had only three thousand trembling men at his side and was losing some of them as they began hiding in caves and thickets, and in rocks and holes. Some even crossed over the Jordan and got as far away as they could from what looked like a sure slaughter. Saul was given very specific instruction through the prophet Samuel. He was instructed to wait in Gilgal for seven days until Samuel came to offer burnt offerings to the Lord and then he would get further instruction. Saul did almost all of what Samuel told him and waited in Gilgal but fell short of the full seven days. He began to look around at the fearful and trembling men, and in his own fear he decided to take matters into his own hands and offered up the burnt offering, which was only lawful for the priests to do under God’s law. Then, right after he finished this disobedient offering to the Lord, Samuel appeared!

Let’s learn from this situation. God is always on time; He is never late! It would be wise for us to get our “spiritual clocks” set on His time. There will be seasons that we will walk through in life that we will wonder if God will ever show up, in the same way Saul did. Then there will be other times that God will be asking for instant response from us while we wait around in procrastination, convincing ourselves that we need to pray about it more. God does not do this to play games with us, He does this to build HIS character within us. Everything that God does, He does for His purposes and His plans. Those who love Him and are fully committed to Him live completely submitted to this truth.

God’s plan for Saul, as it is for all of us after being saved and separated from the world, is to work the Cross through us. For some of you, that may have just caused red flags to go up inside of you. You might be saying, “Wait a minute, the Cross was not introduced until the New Testament, how can you be saying that God had to work the Cross through Saul?” One thing we must understand is that everything from Genesis to Revelation points to Jesus and the Cross. Jesus has always been “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians 10:1-10 Old Testament examples to reveal New Testament truth. He then tells us, in verse 11, “All these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (NKJV). The writer of Hebrews also teaches us, “For the law, having a shadow of things to come and not the very image of the things” (Hebrews 10:1 NKJV). We must always read Scripture through the eyes of the Holy Spirit within us, who will always point us in the direction of Jesus and the Cross. The Cross is the central point of all that God is doing on the earth.

God’s plan for Saul was to work His cross within him. No one is exempt from this process. Even though Saul was given “another heart” (1 Samuel 10:9), he was unyielding to god’s continual working within his heart where “old things pass way and all things become new” (see 2 Corinthians 5:17). This is a picture for all of us! When we are born again, God gives every man a “new heart” and a “new mind.” He crowns us as children of the King, yet the only way to draw closer to God is through the Cross. Situations in life will arise that will press us on every side. Life will sometimes throw everything at us and bring us to our breaking point. Yet, it is in these circumstances that God gives us His Grace to purify our hearts through the fiery trials that come upon us (James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 1:6-9). Unfortunately, Saul did not understand this. In his time of testing, he disobeyed the Word of the Lord and was rebuked by Samuel, the prophet of God, who said to him,

You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom should not continue. THE LORD HAS SOUGHT FOR HIMSELF A MAN AFTER HIS OWN HEART, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord has commanded you! (1 Samuel 13:13-14 NKJV emphasis mine).

This man was David.