FEBRUARY 2022
Trusting and Obeying God
Listening to a sermon the other day, I suddenly realised that when God asks us to do something and we don't, we are not only being disobedient to God, terrible as that may be, but we are also choosing to obey satan. How horrible is this..? We are saying to satan, "You are my master". This is the way we empower him, and thus hand to him the authority over our lives that Jesus won for us.
Obedience to God our Father is never easy. It really was not meant to be. This is why we have the gift of the Holy Spirit given to help us and guide us. The Holy Spirit gives us wise counsel and the courage to obey what God asks us to do. The Scriptures tell us that for the joy that was set before Him, Jesus endured the Cross (Hebrew 12:2). Jesus modelled obedience so we would do the same. He only did what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19).
When Mary, the mother of Jesus, was told that she was going to give birth to the Son of God, she was obedient to the call and stepped into it. Her role wasn't easy as she had to endure the mocking of those who thought she was pregnant out of wedlock. The Angel had to appear to Joseph to tell him to take Mary as his wife. What an honour it was to be chosen as Jesus' earthly parents, but it wasn't easy.
The Bible is full of stories of men and women who in faith, were obedient to God Almighty. The list includes people like Noah, Abraham, Moses and his parents, Samuel, Elijah, Deborah, Paul, Barnabas and Gideon, to mention a few.
Jesus says that our ability to be obedient will show how much we love Him. It will enhance our relationship and draw us into an intimate relationship with our Father. Our ability to be obedient will enhance our heart posture and intents, thus drawing our hearts even closer, as we yield our hearts to Father God for His use. This enables His divine purposes to be accomplished even quicker through us.
We see so many examples in the Bible where disobedience to God delayed so much and in some cases, caused God to use a different person, Examples include Esau, Ahab, Elisha's servant Gehazi, Absalom, and so on.
We need to be intentional about assessing how much we trust God, and if we are going to be obedient to Him. We don't need to put understanding as a pre-requisite for obedience because He is God Almighty and His ideas are much better than anything we could come up with ourselves. The Bible tells us that God's ways are different from ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). We need to be obedient so Father God will accomplish His purposes through us. We must not be those who procrastinate, and we must understand that slow obedience is also disobedience.
It's important to simply ask God to help you with these steps, and then you need to get out of your comfort zone, place your hands in His and lean completely on Him. This way, you can give Him all the glory as it was all His idea.
Prayer….
Dear Abba, Forgive me for the times when I have been disobedient to You. Forgive me for when I have ignored Your requests, due to lack of understanding, or lack of trust, or just having a rebellious attitude. Please help me yield myself completely to You in obedience, and increase my trust of You, in Jesus Name, I pray. Amen
God Bless You,
Mina Bajomo
