Obedience and its blessings

Proverbs 3:5-7 (NTV), "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek your will in everything you do, and he will show you which way to go. 7 Do not be impressed by your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and stay away from evil"

Source

1 Samuel 9:17 "When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord said to him, That's the man I told you about! He will govern my people.Saul was to follow the instructions that Samuel had described him according to God, had revealed him. 1 Samuel 10:8 Then go down to Gilgal before me. There I will meet you to sacrifice burnt offerings and offerings of peace. You should wait seven days until I arrive and give you more instructions. 1 Samuel 10:24 Samuel said to all the people, Do you see the man the LORD has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people. Then the people shouted, Long live the king"

Samuel was an extraordinary man and now Saul was succeeding him. Although Israel had chosen a king, rather than God, He would still bless them, if they obeyed Him. Saul was the king, and God would give him every possible opportunity.

1 Samuel 13:9-12 Then Saul said, Come here and give me the burned offering and the peace-offerings. And he made a burned offering to the Lord. And when the burned offering was ended, Samuel came; and Saul went out to see him and to give him a blessing. And Samuel said, What have you done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were going away from me, and you had not come at the time which had been fixed, and the Philistines had come together at Michmash; I said, Now the Philistines will come down on me at Gilgal, and I have made no prayer for help to the Lord: and so, forcing myself to do it, I made a burned offering. And Samuel said to Saul, You have done a foolish thing: you have not kept the rules which the Lord your God gave you; it was the purpose of the Lord to make your authority over Israel safe for ever.

What if we decided to do charitable work and give our riches to the poor, being diligent with the work towards the most needy, striving so that each day they are more benefited and we forget the first commandment, we would qualify as obedient to God, for that we love our neighbor? Nowadays, when there is so much need when a person has some gesture of helping another, we label it as "the sky was won" or "angels like this must exist more in the world" I do not try to belittle the people who do charity work alone I want to tell you that it does not matter what, or what you do if you do not fulfill what Jesus taught us.

Mark 12:29-31
Jesus said in answer, The first is, Give ear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; And you are to have love for the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, Have love for your neighbour as for yourself. There is no other law greater than these.

At all times God encourages us to follow these commandments and yet we take it lightly, as Saul did in his time, we believe more than our own decisions are better, than to follow and fulfill this.

Proverbs 16:2-3 All a man's ways are clean to himself; but the Lord puts men's spirits into his scales Put your works into the hands of the Lord, and your purposes will be made certain.

Today God is calling us to seek more of his presence and not to depart from his word to enjoy his blessings

Deuteronomy 28:12-14
Opening his store-house in heaven, the Lord will send rain on your land at the right time, blessing all the work of your hands: other nations will make use of your wealth, and you will have no need of theirs. The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; and you will ever have the highest place, if you give ear to the orders of the Lord your God which I give you today, to keep and to do them; Not turning away from any of the orders which I give you today, to the right hand or to the left, or going after any other gods to give them worship

From the above we deduce that obedience to God always brings blessing, as well as consequences for disobedience to God. This is more than a promise and if the only condition for these blessings is obedience, I think it is not so difficult. Try it and you will see the results.