Why should we obey God?
There are a lot of people who think we should obey God simply so He will bless us.
That's not the right reason.
The truth is, obedience will be blessed. But if that's your only reason, you are missing the point.
In my The Daily Bible Devotional book today, this jumped out at me:
"To be sure, obedience will always be blessed, but sometimes God blesses us for His own reasons wholly apart from our obedience (or even disobedience). Because appearances can be deceiving, we would do well not to examine too carefully any "gift horse" God might give us. We might end up disappointed to learn that it has nothing whatsoever to do with our own effort or righteousness."
When we try to do things in our own power, with our own righteousness, or because we want to get something, we will probably end up totally disappointed.
People lose their faith over stuff like this. Have you ever heard someone say, "Well, I prayed and didn't hear from God, so I'm just done with it all."?
God does want us to be obedient, but out of our LOVE for Him!
If we treat God like a vending machine, and only obey Him to get what we want, why would He bless us?
Last week, during our staff time devotional, Pastor Butch said something so profound,
"Don't allow your expectations to cloud your vision of what He wants to do."
We do that so much! We expect God to answer a prayer a certain way, or we expect that if we obey this command, He will bless us.
He will bless us. When He's good and darn ready to. He's God. He has the right to do whatever He wants, whenever He wants.
Loving God and Jesus, following their ways, and doing what we are told will get us where we need to be. Doing His will, for His purposes are what He's called us to do.
People are watching us. They see how we handle things.
Let's be a people that obey God, simply because it's a great thing to do, and because we love Him.
Who's with me?
God bless you today and always.
No comments:
Post a Comment