If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land (Isaiah 1:19)
What exactly does God expect from us? What is it that He wants us to do. What does He want you to act like? There are many truthful answers to these questions, but I think we can boil them all down to one word: obedience.
Obedience is the essential ingredient in all that a believer does to please God. Without obeying the Lord, there can never be any action that pleases Him or an attitude that exalts Him.
God has called every Christian to this one fundamental standard, to be obedient to the Lord’s leading in our lives. But why? Is it because God is some dictator or cruel master? No! It is because He loves us with a protective love. He wants to guide us through the snares that lay ahead of us which only He knows exist.
We ask our children to obey us because we love them, and want to protect them from harm’s way as we see it coming. In the same way, God, who knows all the consequences of our actions, knows what the best path for us is. He knows that if we make decisions based simply upon our limited understanding, then we will find ourselves in trouble. So, as a loving protective Father, He asks us to obey Him so He can lead us to the perfect place that is both honouring Him and the best for us.
Obedience then, allows us to demonstrate our confidence in His plan for our lives, and it reveals to Him that we trust Him even though we do not fully understand the reason things happen to us.
If we know God is leading us elsewhere, but fail to obey Him, then we dishonor Him and reveal our lack of confidence in His plan for both us and the church.
I hope that you will continue to be obedient to the Lord’s leading in your life. Today, open the scriptures and pray, asking the Lord to give you a heart that is willing to change whatever is necessary in your life to place you in obedience to His word.