Where is your trust based today? If your confidence is in the world and its governing bodies…you will be sorely disappointed. But if you put your safety and security in the hands of the Lord, your hope will not be put to shame.
Tag: obedience to the Lord
James 1: 6-8 ” But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a doubled-minded man, unstable in all he does.”
The Greek word for double-minded is very interesting. The double-minded person not only believes in God and that all His promises are true…but he also depends on himself and what he can accomplish alone – without God. Such a person is spiritually unstable and prone to deceitfulness and deception.
Ezekiel 13:5 ” You have not gone up to the breaks in the wall to repair it for the house of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the Lord.”
How can the Church stand firm if it’s divided? How can Believers work together as one if there are divisions? It won’t happen…and Satan knows that all too well. If he can use pride and egos to stop the work of the Lord he’ll do it. Are we willing as Believers to change the discord and to become as it talks about in Isaiah 58:12. “…you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls.”
Psalm 89:1 ” I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make Your faithfulness known through all generations.”
Just praising the Lord is a very effective way of taking our eyes off our own problems and focusing on Him. Our pity party will end when we start thanking Him for His many blessings, known and unknown. Elsewhere in Psalms it says, ” I will sing of Your strength, in the morning I will sing of Your love, for You are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.”
Jeremiah 2:5 ” This is what the Lord says: ‘ What fault did your fathers find in Me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.’ “
We become what’s important to us, ever influenced by what we devote our time and money to. If it’s empty, futile, and meaningless things of the world…we’ll be left wanting and ever searching for more. But if it’s God…our search is over.
John 15: 1-2 ” I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will bear even more fruit.”
The Lord cuts off all the barren branches. But He also prunes the fruit-bearing branches as to insure greater productivity in the future. Being cut back and shaped may be uncomfortable at the time…but totally beneficial for what the Lord has in mind for you in the future.
Ezekiel 24: 15-16 ” The Word of the Lord came to me: ‘Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears.”
God’s commandments are sometimes very unique…requiring great inner commitment, not merely external or superficial obedience. Many times, there was tremendous cost to serving the Lord. In this verse, God is telling him that He is taking Ezekiel’s dear wife home to heaven, but that he may not mourn her in public. God instructed Jeremiah never to marry…and the Lord told Hosea to take an unfaithful, adulterous woman as his wife. In all cases with these men, God symbolically used their situations to demonstrate His relationship with His people and the changes that needed to be made.
Isaiah 59: 1-2 ” Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear.”
Sin separates us from God…for God can not look upon it. It’s not that the Lord can’t help, it’s because He won’t. For in John 9:31 it says, ” We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does His will.”
Joshua 24: 15 “…then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
A simple statement, but with very profound and eternal consequences within it. Has your family made such a commitment to serve God? Have you consciously made a covenant with the Lord to worship Him, and Him only? Then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.
II John verse 6 ” And this is love: that we walk in obedience to His commands, as you have heard from the beginning, His command is that you walk in love.”
As you start your journey into 2016, are you willing to yield all of yourself to the Lord…conforming yourself to His ways, not yours? Are you willing to give Him that secret part of you that you’ve been holding on to…hiding from Him…unable to give Him fully? Obedience is the fundamental key in our relationship with God…for His love is truly made complete in it. ( I John 2:5)
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