Friday, September 25, 2009

Day Five: Learning to Live Obediently Before God


Can you imagine a church service where two people died dramatically because of their disobedience to God? Well, this is exactly what we read in Acts chapter five. Ananias and Sapphira—a married couple—were guilty of lying to the Holy Spirit. The result was sudden death. This kept the congregation walking in a genuine honor and fear (reverence) of the Lord. How are you doing in your obedience to God? C’mon now. How important is being obedient to God to you?

In the early part of my Christian experience I struggled to live obediently toward God. Now, obedience is easy, but it still requires an ongoing confrontation of my will. On our journey you will learn by personal experience that drawing closer to God requires making a stronger commitment to living an obedient life. If you choose to waffle in this area, you are also choosing the same path as Ananias and Sapphira. They loved the appearance of obedience without the inner quality of life to support such a position.

May I ask you four penetrating questions?

1) Is there anything in your recent past (within the last 12 months) that God has asked you to do and you’ve either hesitated or simply refused?

2) Is there anyone that God has told you to go to and share but for whatever reason you’ve not done it?

3) Is there anything in the present moment in which God has asked you to do but you’ve reasoned away the call to be obedient?

4) Ask yourself this question: Why am I afraid to live a fully obedient life?

Answering these questions will move you along the healing journey so that all of your life will be reclaimed, especially the inner call to submission and obedience to God.

I look forward to our time together in worship and around the sacred Scriptures this weekend. Have a great day!

3 comments:

  1. Hello everyone,

    Yay, it’s Friday!! --- Ananias and Sapphira didn’t know that lying to the Holy Spirit would have immediate consequence, I bet if either one had the chance the first thing each would say is “the devil made me do it”. Obedience is not an easy thing to do, especially knowing that God will ask of us things that can seem so crazy and in the process make one look painfully “ridiculous”.

    Samuel once said to King Saul “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying his voice? To obey is better than sacrifice.” In light of the subject of obedience, I will also quote Charles Stanley on this one: “Obey God and leave all the consequences to Him.” We play the blame game all the time, some of us even enjoy it and whenever temptation to be disobedient comes, the first thing we do is go about our business and ask God for forgiveness later (guilty, I’ve done it).

    After living in disobedience for quite some time, I have concluded that disobedience is very costly; taking the easy route is always the easiest thing to do. There are things that God asked me to do, I act as if I didn’t hear or really didn’t know what he was talking about and in the process ended up wasting so much time. As much as there is a price to pay to remain faithful and obedient to Christ, there’s an even bigger price that one can never nor will ever be able to afford paying if one chooses to be disobedient. Thank God, I’m done paying because when I turned my back to Christ at some point in my life, I thought that was the best thing to do at the time because I didn’t have to be accountable to anyone, I surely was in for a big surprise.

    God will break you at the knee and make one kneel IF disobedience is willful and one purpose. Even now, sometimes I catch myself trying to defy God, can you believe the insolence of this, I like to be a “Meany” with Jesus a lot of time and give him a piece of my Holy Spirit filled mind of course (can’t be too nasty with God, you know – gotta show respect) but to get it off the chest, I sure tell him – because I’m wrestling with something so far greater than I can bear to hold and I’m telling him not now.

    Whenever I am tempted to disobey God, I turn around and say three words to the devil: “Satan, YOU LIE!!!”

    Have a great day everyone, be blessed.

    Wilene

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  2. Greetings,

    I agree that although it appears disobedience may be the easier choice, there are very costly consequences. We may not instantly drop dead like Ananias and Sapphira, but I believe that something dies slowly within us when we are disobedient. Without repentance disobedience becomes a lifestyle, we then turn our back on God’s best for us, and give the enemy free access to our lives.

    I have learned that although obedience may appear like the tougher choice initially, the benefits outweigh those of disobedience. When we are obedient, we grow spiritually and God is pleased with our actions. Obedience to God is faith in action ..... we are taught in Hebrews that “without faith it is impossible to please God.”

    The questions posed are definitely penetrating and gave me a lot of insight into areas that I need to work on during this journey.....

    Have a good evening!

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  3. Hi Latoya,

    Thanks for your insight, as you pointed out - wouldn't it be scary if the same thing happened in our day, talk about Imagine More Oh Gawd :)! You also made a great observation regarding the slow death that occurs each time we choose to disobey God and as you tactfully stated it does become a lifestyle if we're not careful and it becomes a safety net because making excuses also is attributed to disobedience. Great post - Have a great evening!

    Wilene

    ReplyDelete

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