Obedience to God
by Jill Southern
Have you ever made a decision to obey God as a way of life? I’m not talking about obeying once in a while, but in every area we’ve placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. There are times when we struggle to do what we know is right. We may feel pulled into disobedience simply because we’ve become a bit lazy with our prayer life and Bible reading.
Song of Solomon 2:15 says ‘catch the little foxes that ruin the vineyard’. It seems to me that it can be the smaller decisions that sometimes bring about the bigger consequences. The only similarity between obedience and disobedience is that they reflect the type of lifestyle we have made our own choice to follow.
If we’ve sincerely committed our life to God, then we make a choice to completely obey Him, and then we trust Him and leave whatever the consequences are to Him. In times of disobedience we go our own way, led by our fleshly desires.
And as a believer this brings us into huge conflict between what we know we should do versus what we’re actually doing. The bottom line is that there’s never a time when it’s OK to disobey God. We should obey Him, regardless of what we, or our friends and family, think. We say we believe that God is all wise and knows what’s best for us, so why do we often end up looking for advice in the secular world and not from the only one who knows everything we need to know? We need to consider only one issue – Is this God’s will for my life?
Disobedience can be as simple as not trusting God to take care of our immediate need. Even what we consider to be minor decisions can affect our future. We avoid a lot of heartache by simply obeying God. We can think “I’m not sure whether this is what God wants me to do”. Sometimes it can seem a little crazy, and we rationalise our response with our mind, instead of being led by the Spirit.
I was driving home one day on a main road and felt strongly prompted that I should pull over into a lay-by. I argued with God. “I’m in a hurry. Why would I want to stop”? It seemed completely crazy, but the prompting only got stronger.
So I pulled over into the lay-by and stopped. The next thing that happened was the car behind me, which was travelling quite fast, passed me. Then another car on the other side of the road took the corner too fast. They had a head on collision, and I sat there and witnessed a bad accident. I was completely shocked, and realised if I hadn’t been obedient to the prompting, that would have been me in the accident. We have to learn to be led by the Spirit, not according to our flesh, or logic, or our mind.
We can’t be partially obedient to God. Partial obedience is disobedience. The last verse of an old hymn called ‘When we walk with the Lord’ says ‘Then in fellowship sweet, we will sit at His feet, or we’ll walk by His side in the way. What He says we will do, where He sends we will go, never fear, only trust and obey’, and the chorus goes ‘Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey’ (John Henry Sammis, 1846-1919).
Prayer: Dear Lord, help me today to have a rightful fear of You that will keep me on the path of complete obedience, where You command the blessing for me. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Jill Southern is the founder of Ellel Ministries Pierrepont and directed the work for 21 years. She has recently stood down from that role but still teaches on the NETS programme and has the passion to train and equip God`s people to fully walk in their destiny and calling. She is the Regional Director for Ellel Ministries International in South East Asia and China and is also on the Executive Leadership of the ministry.
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