OBEY GOD WHOLEHEARTEDLY!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SUNDAY JULY 17, 2022.

SUBJECT: OBEY GOD WHOLEHEARTEDLY! 

Memory verse: "But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.” (Romans 6 vs 17.)

READ: Joshua 22 vs 5:

22:5: But take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, to hold fast to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

INTIMATION:

To obey is to comply, to listen to, being submissive to authority. Obeying God completely is adhering strictly to His commands and instructions. Your act of obedience should be from a willing heart, done wholeheartedly without grudges or complain. To obey from the heart means to give yourself fully to God, to love Him “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind” (Matthew 22 vs 37). 

It is doing whatever God asks without reservation or hesitation, and  with joy, enthusiasm, and gladness. You do it without delay. Delayed obedience is really disobedience. Instant obedience will teach you more about God than a lifetime of Bible discussions. You are eager to know what God requires of you to do, and do it gladly and joyfully. The Bible says in Psalm 100 vs 2, "Serve the Lord with gladness.." 

Often we try to offer God partial obedience, that is “halfhearted” obedience. We want to pick and choose the commands we obey. We make a list of the commands we like and obey them while ignoring the ones we think are unreasonable, difficult, expensive, unpopular, or not beneficial to us in our own understanding. For instance you will attend church but you will not want to pay tithe or give offering. You pray to God for forgiveness, but will not forgive the person who offended you. You will hate people but wants God's love in your life. Note that partial obedience is complete disobedience. However, God wants to give you the power to obey Him with all your heart. 

The apostle James in James 2 vs 24 says, "You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only." What this means is that a man’s true faith in God always results to his good works, but the works do not justify him. Faith brings him salvation, active obedience demonstrates that his faith is genuine, and his knowledge and understanding of God.

Let us look at the instance of Abraham, he obeyed God wholeheartedly when God asked him to go and sacrifice his son: "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." (Genesis 22 vs 2.)

Abraham demonstrated one of the greatest acts of obedience in recorded history. He traveled fifty (50) miles to Mount Moriah. He took his son, whom he waited for a hundred years to get, for a burnt offering. He didn't contemplate the possibility of any replacement, since he was old, as well as the wife who was past the age of bearing, for it was impossible for them to have another child. God knew that fact hence His emphasis, "your only son, whom you love." It’s noteworthy that his obedience was prompt and complete. 

It is difficult to let go of what we deeply love. Yet when we wholeheartedly obey God, give Him what He asks, He returns to us far more than we could dream. The spiritual benefits of His blessings far outweigh our sacrifices. The Bible, in Genesis 22 vs 17 - 18, recorded how God blessed Abraham in return for his obedience;  "Blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gates of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."

God doesn't owe us any explanations for whatever He requires us to do. We just obey Him and lean not on your own understanding. Your understanding can wait, but your obedience can't. In fact you will never understand some commands until you obey them first. Obedience unlocks understanding. Remember He created you for His purpose, not your own purpose, and instructs you on what to do to achieve His purpose.

Prayer: Abba Father, endue me with the spirit of wholehearted obedience to You in all areas of my life, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD! 

TRUST GOD COMPLETELY!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SATURDAY JULY 16, 2022.

SUBJECT: TRUST GOD COMPLETELY!

Memory verse: "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind s stayed on You, because he trusts in You." (Isaiah 26 vs 3.)

READ: Psalm 125 vs 1 - 2:

Psalm 125:1: Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.

125:2: As the mountains surround Jerusalem, So the Lord surrounds His people from this time forth and forever.

INTIMATION:

Trusting God completely means having faith that He knows what is best for your life, you expect him to keep His promises, help you with problems, and do the impossible when necessary. Trusting God completely pleases Him. When you put your absolute trust in the Lord, He will surround you as the mountains surround the city of Jerusalem. You will confidently say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress." Those who trust in the Lord completely have the same claim and experience expressed by the psalmist in Psalm 91; the perfect expression of the result of our absolute trust in God. Recite Psalm 91 daily in assurance of your trust in Him.

The reason we trust in the Lord is because He is an unchanging God. As the mountain remains unmoved so do the consistency of our God. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Malachi 3 vs 6; Hebrews 13 vs 8). And because "The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy," (Psalm 147 vs 11), He surrounds His people now and forever. You are continually in His presence. And "In His presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore." (Psalm 16 vs 11.)

Noah, we noted, was one of the people that trusted God. Even when God asked him to do something that made no sense to him, he trusted God and obeyed. Noah knew nothing about flood, for there has been no rain before that time, so he knew nothing about rain. He has never seen an ark or built a ship before, but obeyed the instructions God gave him and adhered strictly to the measurements and materials God told him to use. 

Obviously Noah was faced with three problems that could have caused him to doubt. First, he had never seen rain, because prior to the flood, God irrigated the earth from the ground up. (See Genesis 2 vs 5 - 6.) Second, Noah lived hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. Even if he could learn to build a ship, how would he get it to water? Third, there was the problem of rounding up all the animals and then caring for them. But he didn't complain or make excuses. 

He trusted God completely, and that made God smile at him. It took Noah 120 years to build the ark. I imagined he faced many discouraging days. With no sign of rain year after year, he was ruthlessly criticized as a "crazy man who thinks God speaks to him." I imagined Noah's children were often embarrassed by the giant ship being built in their front yard. Yet Noah kept trusting God.

Trusting is an act of worship. Just as parents are pleased when the children trust their love and wisdom, your faith makes God happy. And without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11 vs 6.) Trusting God completely pleases Him, and consequently He ensures you are kept in perfect peace that surpasses all human understanding. 

We can never avoid strife around us in this world, but with God we can know perfect peace even in turmoil. When we are devoted to Him, our whole attitude is steady and stable. Supported by God's unchanging love and mighty power, we are not shaken by the surrounding chaos. Do you want peace? Keep your thoughts and your trust in God. The secret of stability is to trust in God, because He never changes. He cannot be shaken by the changes in our world, and He endures forever. The fads and ideas of our world, and our world itself will not.

Prayer: Abba Father, in You I put my whole trust. Whatever You can’t do for me, let it remain undone, whatever You can’t give me, may I never have it, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Energy for Today’s To-Dos

 

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

God is the decisive worker here. Work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who works in you, the willing and the working. God wills and he works for his good pleasure. But believing this does not make Christians passive. It makes them hopeful and energetic and courageous.

Each day there is a work to be done in our special ministry. Paul commands us to work at doing it. But he tells us how to do it in the power that God supplies: believe him! Believe the promise that in this day God will be at work in you to will and work for his good pleasure.

It is God himself, graciously at work each moment, that brings the promise of future grace into our present experience. It is not the gratitude for past grace that Paul focuses on when explaining how we work out our salvation. I mention this simply because so many Christians, when asked what the motive is for obedience, will say gratitude. But that is not what Paul emphasizes when he talks about motive and power for our working. He focuses on faith in what God is yet to do, not just what he has done. Work out your salvation! Why? How? For there is fresh grace for every moment from God. He is at work in your willing and doing every time you will and do. Believe that for the challenges of the next hour and the next thousand years.

The power of future grace is the power of the living Christ — always there to work for us at every future moment that we enter. So when Paul describes the effect of the grace of God that was with him, he says, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience — by word and deed” (Romans 15:18).

Therefore, since he would not dare to speak of anything but what Christ accomplished through his ministry, and yet he did, in fact, speak of what grace accomplished through his ministry (1 Corinthians 15:10), this must mean that the power of grace is the power of Christ.

Which means that the power we need for the next five minutes and the next five decades of ministry is the future grace of the omnipotent Christ, who will always be there for us — ready to will and ready to work for his good pleasure.

We Work by Grace

 

By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

Paul realized that the first part of this verse might be misunderstood: “I worked harder than any of them.” So he goes on to say, “Though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

Paul does not trace his obedience back to his thankfulness for past grace. He traces it up to moment-by-moment, ever-arriving grace. He is banking on the promise of God’s future grace to arrive at every moment of need. In every instant of Paul’s intention and effort to obey Christ, grace was at work to produce that intention and that effort. Paul did not bring about his work merely out of gratitude for past grace, but in moment-by-moment reliance on the arrival of promised grace. Paul wants to emphasize that the ever-arriving grace of God is the decisive cause of his work.

Does it really say that? Doesn’t it just say that the grace of God worked with Paul? No, it says more. We have to come to terms with the words, “Though it was not I.” Paul wants to exalt the moment-by-moment grace of God in such a way that it is clear that he himself is not the decisive doer of this work.

Nevertheless, he is a doer of this work: “I worked harder than any of them.” He worked. But he said it was the grace of God “toward me.”

If we let all the parts of this verse stand, the end result is this: grace is the decisive doer in Paul’s work. Since Paul is also a doer of his work, the way grace becomes the decisive doer is by becoming the enabling power of Paul’s work.

I take this to mean that, as Paul faced each day’s ministry burden, he bowed his head and confessed that, unless future grace was given for that day’s work, he would not be able to do it.

Perhaps he recalled the words of Jesus, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). So he prayed for future grace for the day, and he trusted in the promise that it would come with power. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Then he acted with all his might.

LOVE GOD SUPREMELY!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY JULY 15, 2022.

SUBJECT: LOVE GOD SUPREMELY!

Memory verse: "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved of My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." (John 14 vs 21.)

READ: John 14 vs 23 - 24:

14:23: Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

14:24: He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's which sent Me.

INTIMATION:

Love is the characteristic word of Christianity. It describes the attitude of God toward His Son (John 17 vs 26), the human race (John 3 vs 16), and to such as believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14 vs 21). Love also, expresses the essential nature of God (First John 4 vs 8), it conveys His will to His children concerning their attitude one to another (John 13 vs 35), and toward all men (First Thessalonians 3 vs 12; Second Peter 1 vs 7). Christian love has God for its primary object, and expresses itself first of all in implicit obedience to His commandments. Therefore, self-will, that is, self-pleasing is the negation of love to God.

Jesus said that His followers show their love for Him by obeying Him. Keeping God's commandments is the true demonstration of your love for Him. When you love God, you keep His commandments, and Jesus reciprocates by manifesting Himself to you. An intimate relationship is what God desires from you. It's the most outstanding truth in the universe—that our Creator wants to fellowship with us. 

God is love, and He made us to love us, hence He created us in His own image and after His likeness. He longs for us to love Him back. In Hosea 6 vs 6, God says, "For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." God says, I don't want you rituals (sacrifice); I want your love. I don't want your offerings; I want you to know Me." God deeply loves us and desires our love in return. He longs for us to know Him and spend time with Him. This is why learning to love God and be loved by Him should be the greatest objective of your life. Nothing else comes close in importance. Jesus called this the greatest commandment (Matthew 22 vs 37 - 38).

Loving God supremely puts us in an enviable position of being in partnership with Him—the Father and the Son making their home with you. I can envisage the triumphant life of such a person; who lives with Him whom nothing is difficult or impossible with, and the Owner of the whole universe and everything in it! Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11 vs 28 - 30). 

Speaking figuratively, Jesus used a yoke, a heavy wooden harness that fits over the shoulders of an ox or oxen. It is attached to a piece of equipment the oxen are to pull. A person’s heavy burdens may be sin, oppression, persecution, unfavorable life’s circumstances, or even weariness in the search for God. Jesus frees people from all these burdens when you are in partnership with Him. The yoke is shared with Him, with weight falling on His bigger shoulders than yours. He has more pulling power, and is upfront helping. Consequently, you are participating in life’s responsibilities with a great Partner, and now that frown can turn into smile, and that gripe into a song.

Jesus doesn’t offer a life of luxurious ease—the yoke is still an oxen’s tool for working hard. But you are assured of His winning power and support at all times in your life’s travails. The rest that Jesus promises is love, healing, and peace with God, not the end of all labor. A relationship with God changes meaningless, wearisome toil into spiritual productivity and purpose.

Love is more than lovely words; it is commitment and conduct. If you love Christ, then prove it by obeying what he says in His Word. Jesus never promised that obeying Him would be easy. But the hard work and self-discipline of serving Christ is no burden to those who love Him. And if the load starts to feel heavy, we can always trust Christ to help us bear it. 

Prayer: Abba Father, endue me with the excellent spirit of love and obedience to you, in all things, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Ministry — More Important Than Life

 

“But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 20:24)

According to the New Testament, “ministry” is what all Christians do. According to Ephesians 4:11–12, pastors have the job of equipping the saints for the work of ministry. But ordinary Christians are the ones who do the ministry.

What ministry looks like is as varied as Christians are varied. It’s not an office like elder or deacon; it’s a lifestyle devoted to making much of Christ and meeting the needs of others.

It means that we “do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). Whether we are bankers or bricklayers, it means that we aim at advancing other people’s faith and holiness to the glory of God.

Fulfilling your ministry is more important than staying alive. This conviction is what makes the lives of radically devoted people so inspiring to watch. Most of them speak the way Paul did about his ministry here in Acts 20:24: “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus.” Doing the ministry that God gives us to do is more important than life.

You may think you need to save your life in order to do your ministry. On the contrary, how you lose your life may be the capstone of your ministry. It certainly was for Jesus — only in his thirties.

We need not fret about keeping ourselves alive in order to finish our ministry. God alone knows the appointed time of our service. He will decide when our death is not an interruption of our ministry, but the last act of our ministry.

Henry Martyn was right when he said, “If [God] has work for me to do, I cannot die.” In other words, I am immortal until my work is done. Therefore, ministry is more important than life.

PLEASING GOD IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR LIFE!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY JULY 14, 2022.

SUBJECT: PLEASING GOD IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR LIFE! 

Memory verse: "By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”, for before he was taken he had this testimony that he pleased God." (Hebrews 11 vs 5.)

READ: Hebrews 11 vs 5 - 6; Second Peter 1 vs 17:

Hebrews 11:5:: By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”, for before he was taken he had this testimony that he pleased God.

11:6: But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Second Peter 1:17: For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in Whom al am well pleased.”

INTIMATION:

Since pleasing God is the first purpose of your life, your most important task is to discover how to do that. What do we do to be pleased with God? The apostle Paul, when writing his first letter to the believers in Thessalonica said this, "Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.” (First Thessalonians 4 vs 1 - 2.) 

There are clear examples in the Bible of those who pleased God. One of them was Enoch. Our memory verse tells us that before Enoch was taken away he had the testimony that he pleased God. The testimony of Enoch is that he was obedient to the will of God. The reward of his faithful work was that God spared him from experiencing physical death. Because of his righteous living by faith, Enoch did not physically die, consequently, he never experienced death, but was taken directly to heaven to continue living with God. 

Another man that pleased God was Noah. In his days the entire humanity had become morally bankrupt, degradation was the norm of social behavior, and thus society was beyond repentance as and everyone lived for their own pleasure, not God's. God couldn't find anyone on earth interested in pleasing Him, so He was grieved and regretted making man. God became so disgusted with the human race that He considered wiping it out. 

But there was one man who God spared because he pleased Him, living according to the standard of God’s law, although he was far from perfect. In Genesis 6 vs 8, the Bible says, "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Though the Bible recorded that "Noah was a just man, and blameless in his time. And Noah walked with God." (Genesis 6 vs 9), but that does not mean he never sinned, rather it means that he walked with God, wholeheartedly loved and obeyed God.

Above all, the life and times of our Messiah, Jesus Christ, during His earth walk is a testimony of a life that pleased God. In one of the passages we read today, we saw how He received from God the Father honor and glory. He is highly exalted and given a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those beneath the earth. 

Pleasing God is occasioned by your faith in Him. “For without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Faith is reliance, loyalty, or complete trust in God. Therefore, how can you please whom you did not trust nor rely on? You must first believe and trust that God is what He says He is, and will do what He says He will do. Those who completely trust God are pleasing to Him, and are rewarded eternally. 

Jesus, our Messiah and role model, is more than just a great leader, a good example, a good influence, or a great prophet. He is the Son of God. God testified of Him when He said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!" (Matthew 17 vs 5.) 

Jesus obeyed the Father to the letters. He never did anything outside of His Father. He said, "I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgement is righteous, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of the Father who has sent Me." (John 5 vs 30.) 

Believers have been given the right to become children of God. And do like our Messiah, Jesus Christ. God is pleased when we put Him first in our entire lives. To put God first we must do the following:-

1. Love Him supremely.

2. Trust Him completely.

3. Obey Him wholeheartedly.

4. Praise and thank Him continually.

5. Use our abilities to benefit His course.

Therefore, look at your spiritual checklist to see how you are faring in putting God first, considering the lists above. 

Prayer: Abba Father, my utmost desire is to please You, and consequently, obtain the crown of glory of eternal life with You. Engrace me with the strength and wisdom to please You at all times, for by my strength, and outside of You I can do nothing, in Jesus’ most precious Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!