Obeying God

For the past twenty seven years I have watched as people have come through the doors of Ellel Centres around the world on their way to Healing Retreats, Training Courses or Conferences. It doesn’t matter which country you are in, or which people group they are from, when you look at their faces you can so often see that they have been on a journey through life. Some of the battle scars they have picked up along the way are evident! It is sometimes clear that, for various reasons, they haven’t been walking about in freedom.

The whole of Psalm 119 is about the laws and the precepts of God – about how precious they are, about how when we follow them, they give us wisdom beyond the intellect of man. In these remarkable verses from this, the longest Psalm, the psalmist expresses a core truth which lies at the heart of much of the healing that people receive when they come in humility and submit their lives to the scrutiny of the Spirit of God, letting His Word and His truth be the arbiter of what has been right or wrong in their lives.

Pride would want us to adjust the implications of Scripture to make it look as though we are never wrong. Humility recognises that in our heart there is a constant vulnerability to temptation and that when we succumb to it then we sin – the fact is, sin has consequences. We cannot walk about in freedom when we have been bound by the consequences of our own ungodly choices – choices which are contrary to the laws and precepts of God.

No wonder the Psalmist came to the conclusion that there is nothing more sensible than to delight in obeying God’s law. When we live within the limits of these provisions of God’s mercy, then the enemy has no rights or grounds to enslave us in bondage – we are free! To walk about in such freedom is a totally liberating experience which brings a smile to our faces, a spring to our step and a rejoicing heart. Nothing gives me more joy than to see the changes in people’s faces when they begin to walk about in the freedom that confession, forgiveness, deliverance and healing always brings. No wonder Isaiah prophesied that the Sovereign Lord was coming to set the captives free! (Isaiah 61:1)

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that in Your Word You have given us the keys of salvation and that when I choose to walk in Your ways, then I will always know the freedom that only You can give. Help me, Lord, to remember Your laws and rejoice to walk in them forever and ever! In the name of Jesus. Amen.