Happy March Girls Anthem!
Every year, people pick a word or ask God for a word for the year. I also thought about how many pastors prophetically declare the year based on their quiet time with God. I said, “We love the year of open doors and the year of increase, but how many of us will surrender to the year of obedience?”
Here are nine reasons God revealed why people struggle with obedience. Let’s take a look at them:
We struggle to trust God in new areas.
We assume results before we take the position.
We already know our flesh will lose.
You did it before and it didn’t turn out right.
We can’t see how things will add up.
Our logic follows us into our prayer closet.
We just don’t want to (we want our way).
We want to negotiate with God.
What fear is saying is possible.
While these things are real, this doesn’t change the fact that God’s word is fact. Here’s the antidote to dealing with these thoughts:
To be true disciples, we must trust God in new areas. The disciples chose to trust God by abandoning everything they knew to follow Christ.
You can’t make assumptions about how things will end before you decide to obey. Take the position of obedience before assuming results.
If you're always excited about something when God asks you to do something, it probably wasn’t God. Your flesh should hurt when you receive an instruction from God, even an exciting one like moving to a new city.
Maybe you obeyed God in a particular area before and you felt like it didn’t turn out the way you thought it would. Obedience to God isn’t about your results, it’s about what God intends. There is no embarrassment in obeying God.
Obedience requires faith. We won’t see the whole staircase, we just have to take the first step. Remember, God’s word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path (Psalm 119:105). One step at a time.
When we receive instructions from God in our prayer closets, we must abandon logic. We must remember that faith is the currency of the kingdom and relinquish the need to figure it out.
Let’s just be honest here: God’s instructions require us to die to ourselves. This isn’t fun or easy, but it is necessary. We must surrender daily, which will help us desire more of what He wants for us, even if we don’t understand.
Most of us want to add our thoughts and opinions to what God has asked us to do. This causes us to seek out negotiation rather than taking God’s word as truth. This doesn’t mean you can’t ask Him questions when you need clarity, but you can’t negotiate your way out of obedience. Following an instruction partially is still disobedience.
When those fear-based thoughts or scenarios come up, they may be speaking the truth. That business might fail or leaving your job and launching a full-time ministry may very well cause you to struggle your first year, but that doesn’t mean we get to choose. Fear may be speaking facts, but you have to remember to stand on God’s word which speaks the truth.
The Beauty of Obedience
One of the things I believe we need to remember is that obedience starts from a heart posture, not a body posture. While it does begin with a decision, that decision comes from a heart softened to God’s ways and God’s word (Ezekiel 36:26). Our daily obedience to God is just as important as our overall Christian lifestyle of obedience. The bigger issues (such as not serving other gods, not rebelling against God’s laws, etc.) are things we’re quick to point out when we think of obedience. However, it’s usually the things we don’t want to do (daily forgiveness, not walking in offense, watching our words, etc.), that we struggle with.
The purpose of God instructing us to do something is for our benefit and His overall purposes. Don’t skip over steps to get to the top of the mountain by ignoring the daily instructions God gives you. For example, if God tells you to do something that scales your business, you may get excited and find ways to implement the instruction. But you can’t skip over what God tells you to do that may be uncomfortable to make that happen. Things like going to training to help you learn how to lead people well, cutting out and removing systems that God never told you to use, letting go of team members who are slowing down God’s vision, etc. You can’t skip the hard stuff that God tells you to do to make your business grow.
One of the things I want you to be careful with when it comes to obedience is: if you get excited about every instruction that God gives you, you better check to see if you’re hearing from God. I believe that most disciples struggle with obedience because they think that God’s instructions should make them “feel” a certain way. Most instructions from God are meant to prune and purify us, which means, they will hurt. It’s not always going to be, “Move to this city and I’ll give you the land”.
One of my favorite verses in the Old Testament is Isaiah 1:19: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.” However, the verse after that says, “But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword” (verse 20). Being willing isn’t an automatic response for us because of our flesh, which is why The Lord said, “If you are willing”. Whenever God asks you to do something, ask Him to give you a heart to obey Him. To be willing means to be ready, eager, or prepared to do something. Look at it as the “prepared” part being God stepping in to give us the grace to do what He asked of us. I believe this starts with being honest with God: I don’t want to do this, nevertheless, at Your word, I will (Luke 5:5, Luke 22:42).
When it comes to the word “land” in verse 19, you have to see the land as your place of obedience, not just a physical place. The Hebrew word for land means earth, soil, and region. It also means territory. Don’t just get excited about the idea of taking territory for God when He sends you out - get excited about the “land” of your home, your job, or wherever He has called you to reign.
Lastly, is it possible that we struggle to obey Him because we don’t know Him? Do you remember the article I wrote where I shared that many of us quote Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths”, but how can we trust God with a heart that doesn’t belong to Him? It’s the same here. 1 John 2:3-11 is a passage of scripture that helps us analyze if we know Him. Whenever my earthly father told me to do something when we were together, I despised his instruction and his correction because I didn’t know him. It was hard for me to see how what he was saying was for my good when he wasn’t even around.
If we truly get to know our Father, then we’ll fall in love with Him and become one with Him. There are some things that I do by default because I’m so inundated with the Holy Spirit that I can’t imagine not obeying God. This doesn’t mean I jump immediately and that I don’t dislike some of His instructions, but I’m going to do what He asks. I’ll sit with my Father until I can get the heart I need to obey Him. There is no perfection in this area, only purity. If you have to weep through it, do what He says and let your flesh die along the way (while in motion).
Here are some things to consider:
We will be the only ones who regret not doing what God asked us to do (He will still be God).
God’s instructions come from a place of protection and love (perception is key).
God will never ask us to do something He hasn’t equipped or graced us to do.
He not only gives us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3-4) but whatever we need to obey down to every second of the day. I encourage you to study biblical figures such as Esther, Mary, and even Anna (Luke 2), who is ever rarely heard of. Commitment to God during a time when compromise is at an all-time high will require you to decide to obey no matter what. What areas do you struggle to obey God in? How can improvement in these areas make you stronger in your faith and commitment to being a disciple?
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