{"id":1393,"date":"2012-04-23T15:52:36","date_gmt":"2012-04-23T20:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2012-04-23T15:52:36","modified_gmt":"2012-04-23T20:52:36","slug":"1-samuel-1522","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/?p=1393","title":{"rendered":"1 Samuel 15:22"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em><strong>But Samuel replied: \u201cDoes the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Religious activities are not the end in themselves\u2014they are supposed to lead us to God. Yet, like the people in Samuel\u2019s day, we can use religious activity to hide from the life that God is offering! Christ has risen and sent His spirit so that we can experience His life. So don\u2019t settle for a set of duties that dull us to the reality of His presence. Learn to listen to the Scripture instead of just read it. Learn to quiet yourself in prayer. God IS speaking. The real question is: are we able to hear?\u00a0 ~ Dave Whitehead, Senior Pastor, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gracenyc.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">GraceNYC.org<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"ylb-container\" style=\"background-color:E6E6E6\">\n                   <a href=\"#\" class=\"ylb-close\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/wp-content\/plugins\/mtx-license-plugin\/images\/close-icon.png\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t   <p><div style=\"background-color: #F8F8F8; color: #3B5D9B; font-style: italic;  font-size: 10px;\">\r\n<fieldset style=\"border: #FFF dotted 1px;\" >\r\n<legend><strong>Iowa Web Network<\/strong><\/legend>\r\n<span style=\"padding-left: 15px;\">This article is subject to Creative Common License.  You can reproduce content, but citing the source and the author\u2026<\/span>\r\n<\/fieldset><\/div><\/p>\n               <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But Samuel replied: \u201cDoes the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. Religious activities are not the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/?p=1393\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,5,1],"tags":[56,44],"class_list":["post-1393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-favorites","category-old-testament","category-readings","tag-old-testament","tag-samuel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1394,"href":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions\/1394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowawebnet.com\/havefaith\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}