The Sacrifice of Obedience

Every New Year it seems that everyone and their brother has a New Year’s “Resolution”… I am going lose weight or I am going stop smoking or I am going to do this or that however only 50% people who make resolutions ever make it to June and most resolutions fizzle out by the time winter hits. So I was thinking that as a Born Again believer what resolution(s) should I be making? Everyone who knows me knows that the two things I strive for is to be whatever God wants me to be and to do whatever God tells me to do. However, I am the first to admit that many times I fall short and I know that if I am not being used to my full potential for my Lord then it ME to blame and not God!

Jesus told us that “Many are called but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14) and “What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory” so after reading this I had to ask myself “what makes people chosen and what makes God want to make them a vessel of honor and not a vessel of wrath”? First off, it is by God’s grace and God’s grace ONLY that we even HAVE a chance to be chosen BUT where the “easy grace” crowd have lost their way is that they fail to realize that we DO have a part to play in whether or not we are chosen of God and it’s not just “grace” alone. 1 Samuel 15:22-23 says “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams, for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king”. We have to remember that the principles of God are forever no matter what Covenant they are under, however this does not mean we have to follow the “laws” of the Old Testament because if anyone thinks they are supposed to follow some Old Testament laws then I suggest they learn how to dress and cook dove/bullocks as God commanded them to do! So what is the principle of God that is revealed in this verse? OBEDIENCE!!!

I hear so many “christians” on FB and other sites talking about all the sacrifices they have made for God however I hardly anyone talking about obedience, but why? Because true OBEDIENCE brings about Luke 9:23 “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” and this is the sacrifice of obedience that God demands of his people IF they want to be used by him and to be a vessel of honor and nothing else will do. This level of obedience means TRUE death to self and not the phony death people are walking in where they say that they can say and do whatever THEY want. We are told in 1 Corinthians 13:3 that even if “I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing” but once again, why? These are great things and Biblical things to do but why did they mean nothing here? The answer is that they were done out of sacrifice and not love because true love for God prompts us to be obedient which means we follow all his commandments and we love others as he did. We read in Matthew 5:38-40 that “Ye have heard that it hath been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but I say unto you that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also”. True love for God will always encapsulate obedience to God because you cannot say you are walking in obedience if you are not walking in love and you cannot say you are walking in love if you are not walking in obedience because they go hand in hand. Jesus said this “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” so once again walking in obedience to Christ will always mean walking in the love of God. A good goal we can set for 2018 is to take the time to read Matthew 5-7 every month because it sums up the Christian walk of obedience.

Now many may think like I did for years that they are living a life of obedience, but are we really? A good test is this “what do we give our time to at home”? How many hours a week do we spend in the Word and in Prayer versus how much time to we spend on doing things that WE want to do? This means we have to answer this question honestly, “what is distracting us from becoming a vessel of obedience”? Could it be watching sporting events (football, baseball, or whatever else you are into)? Could it be a TV show or that we are watching a lot of movies? Could it be we are spending tons of times playing video games? At the end of the day it does not matter what is distracting us from total obedience because all that matters is that we are being distracted! I am not saying that God wants robots that walk around saying “ Praise Jesus” all the time or spewing other christian slogans  because most of the people constantly saying all these great “christian slogans” are simply doing it out of habit and not from the heart. So it’s okay to “catch a game”, “watch a decent show or movie”, or “play a video game” but they are not okay when they are taking time away from our time with GOD! If you read this carefully, you see that I said WE and OUR because this message was for me but I wanted to share it with all my family so that maybe it would help someone as much as it helped me. I pray that you all spend time reading this and then praying honestly as I did so that we all can be better servants of Christ and that God will have his way in our lives 2018. If you want to reread this I know that FB scrolls on forever so I will post it on my blog so that you can read and share it as much as you like. May God use us all in 2018 for HIS GLORY!!