What are You Kicking?

This chicken is hilarious! I saw this at the same time I was meditating on something strange that a man of God said to Eli the Priest in 1 Samuel 2:29:

Why do you kick against my sacrifice and my offering which I have commanded in my dwelling, and honor your sons above Me, by making yourselves fat with the choicest of every offering of My people Israel?

It seems that God wants His people to honor Him above all else. Eli thought he was honoring God by being Priest, but because he was allowing his sons Hophni and Phineas to profane the office of Priest, God said he was honoring them and not Him. In fact, Eli was even getting fat from the behavior of his sons.
We may think we are honoring God by going to church and sometimes reading our Bible, sometimes praying, sometimes giving money, but what really makes us fat? What really do we desire in our lives?

If we fudge at giving God everything, if we ignore His Word, ignore His commands, we are really "Kicking" at the things of God. We are "kicking" at the wrong goal. To paraphrase the commercial: "our kick is not right."

As we begin a new year, we need to determine what and who we will honor in 2008. We need to get our kick right. The young boy Samuel is our example of one who got his "kick" right. 1 Samuel 3:19 says the Samuel let none of God's words fall to the ground. For the Lord revealed Himself ...by the word of the Lord. Clearly Samuel was a young man who honored God.

May 2008 be a year in which we chose and commit to honoring God with everything we are and have. We want to have that kick that propels us to God's finish line. We want to Kick the Winning Field Goal.