Obeying God means laying down your life

January 9, 2018 Discerning Reader 1 Comments

Passage: Joshua 1

We need to have the attitude and heart to be willing to lay our lives down to keep God’s commandments and be obedient. Don’t just serve God when you have time or when you are ready. Don’t put sleep or food or other things first. Put God first. Don’t just obey when it’s easy. Obey when it’s a sacrifice, when it’s hard, when it seems impossible.

Meditate on the Word of God – lay your life down and obey God, even when it’s hard.

Keeping God’s commandments must be your lifeline.

Be like Esther, who said, “If I die, I die.” She was willing to die in order to obey God and intercede for her people.

If you only serve God with your leftover time, you will die spiritually. That’s why churches in America are closing down everyday. They put everything else before God. They didn’t have the attitude and willingness to keep God’s commandments no matter what.

If you want to make it to heaven, you must give up this world. If you want to see your children grow up and serve the Lord, you must put God first in your life. They will follow your example. If you want your children to rise up and overcome, you must show them how. You must show them that your relationship with God is unshakable. You must show them how to give up everything for God. That is the best gift that you can give your children.

Examine your heart every day.

We have too many open doors. Be diligent to keep yourself holy. Daily walk in obedience. Daily walk in faith. Daily study the Word.

Why do people struggle? They aren’t walking in obedience. Why do they feel rejection and doubt? God’s Spirit in you is grieving because you are rejecting God and not being obedient to God. The Spirit of God in you feels grieved and rejected. You feel that grief.

God told Joshua that He would be with him as long as he lived. He told him that He would never desert him. That is God’s promise for His children.

When they were about ready to cross the Jordan River, the water was overflowing its banks.

Joshua 3:15
15 and as those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest),

There was mud everywhere. The water overflowed the river. When they obeyed God, it felt like they were walking into their death.

When you obey God, you may feel like you are losing something.

God could have told them to cross when the water was lower and it wasn’t as scary. But God told them to cross during the worst time of the year.

God may tell you to do something at the worst time in your life. You might feel like you are finally situated and secure and comfortable. Everything is finally settled. Then God tells you to move, to go, to sacrifice, to go in a different direction.

Why? God sees everything. We only see what’s right in front of us, but God sees everything. When you cross the river, there are great things waiting for you. But it looks like you are losing everything. You can’t see what’s on the other side. You only see the overflowing banks and your imminent death. But obeying God and dying is better than living in disobedience.

Do you have that kind of faith? Do you have that kind of obedience? Have you been obeying God your way or His way?

Satan is looking for the open door of your disobedience to come in and defile you and those around you.

The good news is that God will be with you always. He will be with you through the river.

God told Joshua not to look to the right or to the left. They knew they could die, but they knew that they had to obey God. They knew that when they walked in obedience that their life wouldn’t be comfortable, but they knew they had to do it.

Do not be afraid. The Lord God is with you.

God is saying to you today: It doesn’t matter how deep the water looks or how strong the waves, it doesn’t matter how long you have to walk, just go. Go to the place where I have told you to go. Go to your destiny. Go to the place I’ve promised you. Don’t be discouraged or sleepy. Go boldly and have confidence because I am with you. On the way to the Promised Land, don’t relax or take a break or fall asleep. Don’t think about going back to Egypt. Go to the place I’ve promised you, I’m giving you. Obey Me. God told them to walk on the land that He was giving them.

God bless you,
Pastor Sun East

More in this series:
Part 1: Are you scared? God says, “Be brave, bold, and strong”
Part 2: What causes spiritual weakness?
Part 3: Strength comes through obedience

 

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