The Importance of Obedience

I was reading this morning, in the word of God.  I feel compelled to share with you how I was touched and what I feel the Lord has showed me.

I was reading in 1 Samuel about Saul’s very brief time as King over Israel. There were a couple of things that struck me in this chapter.  As we know Saul found it hard to obey God and that is one of the points the Lord drives home in chapter 15, (the importance of obedience). We find one very popular verse in ch15, vrs22 “..to obey is better than sacrifice.”

The more I read and re-read this chapter it struck me how Saul seemed to try and manipulate the order of the LORD to fit his own desires. How Saul reasoned with Samuel. Arguing what he did in disobedience, he did for the LORD (vrs21)

While in the end it cost him his throne.

Vrs 28 “And Samuel said unto him, The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine, that is better than you.”

It seemed to me, Saul had gotten all too comfortable with the LORD’s mercy. As we see in vrs 24-27  Saul is desperate to have Samuel pardon his transgression, again. Even expecting it.

I know we have probably heard all this before, “The importance of obedience”. However, as I said in the beginning there were a couple of things that struck me as I read this chapter. The main thing being found at the end of vrs 35

“…and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.”

This broke my heart and as I read, I began to weep as I pictured in my heart the broken heart of the LORD.

How many times have I, have we, been given an assignment from the LORD, and taken off with it? (perhaps in excitement even)  Not stopping and taking the time to listen to that small still voice for instructions for the next step?

Or worse yet, how many times have we at one time or another, flat out disobeyed the LORD? Just tweaking His instructions ever so slightly, to fit our idea of what is best. Or changed things ever so slightly because it was more convenient at any given moment?

I began to think of all the times I myself had waited and put things off  the LORD had told to me to do. Even just waiting a few moments to carry out a directive. 

I began to think about how the LORD had replaced Saul and thought to myself,  "How much longer will the LORD put up with MY disobedience before He replaces me?”

I began to wonder if my actions had caused the LORD’s heart to break and possibly caused Him to wonder if He had chosen the wrong person for the job?

I began to weep, in repentance and saw myself, not much better than Saul.

YES, we have Yeshua/Jesus.

Yes, we have the Blood of the Lamb and the Grace that flows from the throne. Yes, that grace is greater than any sin and the love of our heavenly Father is so pure and full and overwhelming. 

Yes His arms are always open.

Yes He is a God of reconciliation.

Yes He is close to the broken-hearted

Yes He is here for you and me when we fall

Always 

He is Always Here 

That is why He created us 

You and Me

To be here with us, for us

Through His Son He has made a way

Though we have sinned and lost our way

Through Yeshua, we can be with our creator still today

Still we are held accountable for that which we have received. Which means we should know better than to take advantage of God's precious Holy Spirit, by ignoring his voice.

What has the Lord asked of you?

Have you counted the cost? 

Are you willing to follow his instruction without deviation?

That is exactly what this portion of scripture has prompted me to do.

I want a double portion.

God’s grace has made this available to us through his son Yeshua/Jesus.

I don’t want to break the Father’s heart.

Do you?

If you found this post at all encouraging. If it spoke to you in an encouraging way or prompted you to move forward in your walk with the LORD. Please join me in this prayer below.

Shalom!

LORD please forgive me for all the times I have ever neglected to hear and or listen to your beautiful small still voice. Forgive my recognized rebellion and my unknown disobedience. Please help me Holy Spirit to serve you honestly and whole heartedly without fear or intimidation and help me to know my place in your heart and your kingdom and help me help others to live accordingly and do the same. I love you LORD with all that I am and everything I have.

I am yours….AmyColleen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boot Camp - Word from the Lord

The Lord has been  taking me through a season of obedience training....I guess that would be the best way to put it. At least that is how I am feeling about it. I guess you could say it is a sort of officer's training camp. I have already been through boot camp; when I enlisted ( gave my heart to the Lord about 36 years ago) Now I have been promoted and I am being sent to officer's training. Boot camp ALL over...Officer Style!...I keep getting this... sense of Déjà vu...as if I have already been through this and then that's when the Lord let's me know thing's are just a "little different" this time around.

And they truly are...It's all about obedience...in the small and the big things.

Obedience I have learned and now am being tested on....is the TRUE measuring stick of our FAITH and TRUST in our Lord.

Yes'em...If we can learn to be "obedient" in ALL things that the Lord has set before us...in HIS WORD....great and small...(and here is the key)...and with a peace that passes understanding, not having  to work at it, being it second nature...we will glide through this life like a hot knife through cheese cake.

I wanted to share this word that the Lord shared with me...I thought it was a word that many would benefit from...I also posted the scripture from Deuteronomy 28:1-14 where the Lord speaks directly about the blessings that will come from being obedient to his law.

It is my prayer that all who look upon these words are blessed!

Shalom in Yeshua HaMashiach

Obedience

In this season, obedience is everything for you. You need to heed my voice.

Listen and obey. Others may not understand ~ that’s okay ~ they may tell you otherwise ~ as what I say for you to do ~  but you must learn to obey my voice.

Do not be moved by your emotions. Obedience is far better than sacrifice.

Where I am taking you, you will need to be able to hear my voice and obey it without hesitation or wavering.

This is a season of the spirit man.

A season to see with your spirit eyes and to hear with your spirit ears ~ a season to walk in the spirit.

Remember  ~  the power of my Holy Spirit abides in you to my glory ~ the very power that rose me up from the grave and took me to my Father’s side in Heaven.

Obedience, sheer, obedience.

Deuteronomy 28

Blessings for Obedience

 ¹ If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. ² All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:

 ³ You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

 ⁴ The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

 ⁵ Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.

 ⁶ You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

 ⁷ The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.

 ⁸ The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

 ⁹ The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in obedience to him. ¹⁰ Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you. ¹¹ The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you.

 ¹² The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. ¹³ The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. ¹⁴ Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.

Deuteronomy 28:15-68 Curses for Disobedience

Who's Report will YOU Believe?

Whose report will you believe?

Will you believe the report of man or the report of the Lord?

It’s easy to SAY we will believe the report of the Lord; but when tough times come a knockin’ at our door is that in fact the case?

Take for instance the Israelites….traveling through the dessert all those years. Having been through so much with the Lord already having experienced so much at the hand of God…..so many miracles, signs and wonders…and still they found it so easy to NOT believe the report of the Lord when they finally reached the Jordan and it was time to cross over into the Promised Land; the land flowing with milk and honey that the Lord had promised to them. Do you remember the story? They had finally reached river banks and were nearing time to cross over into the Land flowing with milk and honey. God had told Moses to send spies ahead and surely they did. They came back and reported that it was as the Lord had promised, “A land flowing with milk and honey…” but the word of God also tells us they saw giants in the land and saw themselves as grasshoppers. Below is an account from the scripture.

Numbers 13:25-33 

²⁵ At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land.

Report on the Exploration

 ²⁶ They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷ They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. ²⁸ But the people who live there are powerful and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. ²⁹ The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

 ³⁰ Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” (I love this! Such faith!)
 ³¹ But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” ³² And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. ³³ We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”


Wow!...so what happened here in this situation? The Israelites chose to believe the report of the men, the spies who were filled with fear and who themselves chose not to believe the Lord and grab hold of His promise. In fact the Bible tells us that only one of the men was seen by God to have a different spirit and serve the Lord wholeheartedly. This was Caleb.


The Lord said that not one of those who saw his glory and the signs he performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed him and instead tested him ten times, not one of them would ever see the land that was promised on oath to their ancestors; but instead because his servant Caleb had a different spirit and followed him wholeheartedly, him would bring him into the land he promised to, and his descendants would inherit it. (vr22-24)


Sounds to me like a very good reason to believe the report of the Lord over the report of man! Those who choose to have faith and believe God will reap a reward worth it and those who don’t won’t!
Also, just this morning as I was hearing all this is my heart I was also thinking about how the Word of God instructs about the power of the tongue.

“The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Proverbs 18:21

Have you received some news recently that is less than encouraging?


Have you brought it to the Lord in prayer?

What does the Word of the Lord have to say about it?

A Word from the Lord - 01/12/11

In this season obedience is everything for you. You need to heed my voice.

Listen and obey. Others will not understand; that’s okay; they may tell you otherwise to what I say for you to do; but you must learn to obey my voice.

Do not be moved by your emotions. Obedience is far better than sacrifice.

Where I am taking you, you will need to be able to hear my voice and obey it without hesitation or wavering.

This is a season of the spirit man;

A season to see with your spirit eyes and to hear with your spirit ears; 

A season to walk in the spirit.

 

Remember – the power of my Holy Spirit abides in you to My Glory; the very power that rose me up from the grave and took me to my Father’s side in Heaven.

Obedience ~ Sheer obedience.

Who’s Report will You Believe?


I will choose to believe the report of the Lord.

IS the JOY of the Lord YOUR Strength?

So,

have you ever felt like you were needing

"Strength".... Spiritual strength?....Physical strength?

I know I have....The SONG,

"The Joy of the Lord is My Strength"... comes to mind at the moment.

Perhaps you are familiar with it?



I know I have been in a place more times than I care to admit, where I have felt weak both spiritually and physically.

The word of the Lord tells us that .... the "Joy of the Lord is our strength."

Nehemiah 8:10
( Where the ever famous song is inspired)
Nehemiah said, "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."

What does that mean?

Does that mean that if we are happy in Jesus that we should feel strong in any given situation....both spiritually or physically?

Actually......as nice and "easy" as that would be....Uh.....no.... I do not see that in the word of God to be so.

But rather.......I read in Isaiah 58, the chapter where God himself speaks to Isaiah about what true fasting is all about, God also at the end of this chapter very pointedly says what it takes to obtain the "joy of the Lord" in your life.

13"If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD's holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
¹⁴ then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob."
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.


If I may, I would like to stress, only because the Lord himself did first, the words highlighted in yellow. As they draw attention to "us" and "our will".
I grew up (the last 30+ years, my life as a child of God) thinking all this time that the "joy of the Lord" was simply something that came to me by way of Holy Spirit as I pondered on the love of God and the Grace of God and all the he has done for me; all that I have in and through God and his son Jesus.
As honorable as that sounds, that just isn't scriptural. To be honest, finding this out by way Holy Spirit revelation has been very liberating!

Why? (you might wonder) Simply because....for so many years I have TRIED and failed on many occasion, to obtain on different occasions, the JOY of the LORD and wondered what the heck was WRONG with me!
I have asked the Lord, "Where is my joy? I love you beyond even my comprehension and with a passion that has cost me so very much! Yet I can not seem to muster an ounce of joy at this time in my life when I need it most! WHY, Lord? I NEED STRENGTH...to carry on.....help me to carry on...to understand...please!"
Well, he did. He showed me this scripture. You may have noticed that I posted it just a few weeks ago and I have been studying it since.
The Sabbath was made for man.Going back to even the VERY beginning, God created the world in six days on the seventh day he rested. I am not going to go into a long dissertation on the Sabbath. However I will say a few things that I think will make my point...God is LOVE...everything he does he does out of love for us.

God made a point from the very beginning, knowing we would need help in this area (the area of of us needing rest), to put in place for us one day out of seven for us to rest. He did so in such a manner so as not to take away our free will; as he will never invade our free will; but instead offered us an insurmountable joy and blessing if we obeyed him. (this is the key here....to the "Joy of the Lord". vrs 14)

Like all of his laws if we obey we will reap blessings we cannot contain.
If we rebel and do things our own way we will also reap according.

So many of us have been brain washed through the centuries, unfortunately, that the laws of God are restrictive and bad and mean. When in reality they are completely the opposite
They are liberating, holy and created out of love by our loving Father.
When we follow them we find life and blessing abundant to follow us through out a thousand generations.

So are YOU tired?........Weary?..........Need some strength?

Take a day off.....set it aside, make it Holy. Rest in the Lord.

Let the Joy of the Lord over come you and Be Your Strength!

****