Obedience

The Lord's instructions for King Saul was to completely destroy the Amalekites, not keeping any spoils of war.  But Saul kept the best of the flocks instead of devoting them to God as he was commanded.  His reasoning offered to the prophet Samuel was that he intended to "sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal" (1 Sam 15:21).

Samuel dismissed Saul's excuse saying, "Does the Lord delight in burn 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" (v. 22).

So many follow the pathetic path of Saul rather than the prophetic path of Samuel by ignoring the call of God on their lives to be generous, kind, honest, caring, holy and the like; instead living a life of their own choosing while relying on church attendance, tithing, prayer, Bible reading and such to garner them favor with the Lord.

While I don't want to minimize the importance of religious activity in the life of a Christian as an aid to drawing one to God, those things are designed to point us to a life of obedience to God, but are not the point of that obedient life.

Religious activity is a way of expressing a body of faith but it is relational activity, the active following in the steps of Jesus daily, seeking to be conduits of his love in obedience, which embraces faith.  And it is living out faith not performing acts of religion that equates to obedience born of love: "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me" (Jn 10:27).  Jus' Say'n.