September 22
"So it is with every other one of God's requirements. All His gifts are promised on condition of obedience. God has a heaven full of blessings for those who will co-operate with Him. All who obey Him may with confidence claim the fulfilment of His promises."
Christ’s Object Lessons p.145
There are two things being said in this very short extract from Christ’s Object Lessons. Obedience is a big issue for God, because the acts of obedience are an evidence of our relationship.
I was reading Acts 13:18 yesterday and noted that God’s forgiving nature was shown in that he ‘put up with’ His people for 40 years. During that time they did their own thing, despite the evidence of God’s forgiving nature.
As I read further I noted that God gave evidence that our forgiveness was both real and assured in that Jesus rose from the dead.
Our obedience, our willingness to do God’s will is an evidence of our recognition of His role in our lives. If we recognise His presence God will go several steps further than just ‘putting up with us’ but will be able to give us the blessings we want.
The second element in the passage is that if we obey Him we can, “with confidence claim the fulfilment of His promises.” If we don’t obey we can’t confidently do this. All we can do is say, ‘I hope that His promise will come true in my life.”
There is a simple way to have the confidence of Christ’s continued co-operation with us. Simply decide to do God’s will.
After all, “everything we need for life and godliness is given us”, so in theory both the call and the task are easy because He has taken the burden away from the request to obey.
Could you take that attitude into your prayer with your prayer partner today? As you also pray from the Holy Spirit could you also ask for the desire and power to obey His will?
