On Day 2 we talked about imitating Jesus by doing the Will of the Father. I want to stress again that doing life is not about us but rather it is all about Jesus. We must be willing to throw out our own agenda to heed the voice of God. We must be willing to throw out our own agenda to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We must be willing to throw out our own agenda to touch the lives of people around us. We must be willing.
Today we are going to talk about two other ways to imitate Jesus.
First, we imitate Jesus by being a giver. The other week I was listening to a guy preach on the RAMP. He said something that I had not thought about before. He said God was a giver and was looking for people to be givers. Wow! We know John 3:16 by heart. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” God gave to us and we should be willing to give to Him. Give financially as well as our whole self. We should be known as givers.
Secondly, we imitate Jesus by being obedient. In thinking about obedience, I recognize that it coincides with doing the Will of the Father. Lately, I have read several blogs about obedience. Sandy at God Speaks Today did several posts on this topic which were excellent! You can read them here.
Here are a few scriptures on “obey” from the Old and New Testament:
· Psalm 119:57You are my portion, O LORD; I have promised to obey your words.
· Psalm 119:60I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands.
· Luke 11:28He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
· John 14:21Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."
· John 15:10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
· 1 John 5:3This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,
Obedience is not always easy. It wars with our flesh, especially when we have our own agenda. It is important to be obedient in all things, even the small things. We see in the scriptures that obeying God’s commandments shows our love for Him. We are blessed if we hear the Word of God and obey it.
As I said above, we must be obedient in all things, even the small things. As we hear the voice of God, He will speak to us about things. It is then our choice whether we obey or not. We cannot have the excuse that we are too busy. We cannot have any excuse. God knows exactly what we are doing at all times. Nothing is hidden from Him.
Recently, I went several days hearing God’s voice to act. The first time I was walking out of the parking garage at my work and walked passed a piece of trash on the ground. I felt the prompting to pick it up. I did not and kept walking passed it. On my way back to my car there was that trash again as well as the prompting to pick it up. This time I did pick it up and threw it away. Several days in a row I felt the prompting to pick up stuff at different places where I was at. I did think it was a bit strange. But the thought also came to me about being obedient in all things, even the small things.
One area we can probably relate to being obedient is sitting in church and get the feeling like we are to do something. For instance, we could get the feeling to go to someone and pray. I hear that a lot and have experienced it. We could get the feeling to go to someone and say something. We could get the feeling to give a certain amount. All the while we are getting these feelings, we are questioning if this is God or not. We need to learn to recognize the voice of God and respond with quick obedience and confidence. When we respond with quick obedience, we are blessed in a great way as well as the other person.
I have heard others say that they felt impressed to give up television or sugar or other things. This could be a week, a month, six months or a year. The main thing is our obedience to what God is asking us to do.
I long to hear His voice and I long to be radically obedient in all things. How about you?
Let’s pray. Father, we thank You that You first gave to us. Help us to be givers of ourselves, givers financially and every other area. Thank you Jesus for being an example of obedience to the Father. Help us to be obedient in all things, to be radically obedient, and to respond with quick obedience. We long to hear Your voice. We long to be radically obedient. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Blessings,
No comments:
Post a Comment