Passage Read: 1 Samuel 1-4
Meditation Verse: 2:30
Thought
God is speaking to Eli and about his sons, men who are supposed to know the Lord and live in fear and honor of Him. Because they do as they please instead of as the Lord instructed, they are men who despise Him, standing in the place of those who should honor Him most. The Lord, therefore, esteems them lightly, meaning He will put Eli's two sons to death in the same day and strip Israel of the Ark of the Covenant, something no one thought could ever happen. Eli himself and a daughter-in-law would also die that day, after hearing the news, after hearing that God made good on His promise. It is not good to be lightly esteemed by the Lord. It means your days are soon to end. And Eli's sons will most likely not meet us in heaven.
Application
God is not speaking to foreigners who have little or no chance of knowing the Lord. This is spoken to those who should know the Lord very well! To a household of priests! If the priests do not know and fear the Lord, if the common man knows better than the priests, those priests are in grave danger. They are under His wish and if they will not repent, God will show His displeasure in their flesh! This is a warning to me, though not a priest, to anyone who can know the Lord but doesn't care to do so. No amount of claiming the Lord as my God will cover my chosen ignorance of Him and His ways. I am not saved by what I claim but by what I believe, and what I believe shows in the choices I make to fear and honor the Lord by my life, by my investing time to know what He wants of me and to do it.