Obedience

   Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
Galatians 5:7
   "...Behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat
of rams" 1 Samuel 15:22

   Here we see that obeying is important. It is not what we do but that we obey what we are told to do. If God instructs us to do one thing and we have excuses as to why we can't do it but we do something else he may be indulgent in that but we have not obeyed. A servant of God must be willing to obey regardless of what he says to do. Paul is admonishing the Galatians saying you did run well, who is keeping you from obeying now? What is standing in your way that you are not obeying now? Why are you being hindered from following the truth? Jesus said he was the truth. We all must strive to obey the truth.
   How many of us today are letting things hinder us from running the race set before us? How many of us today are letting the cares of this world hinder us? Maybe the Lord told you to get out this weekend and do something but you let the cares of the world stand in your way. You said but I overslept, or I couldn't get the kids ready in time or my spouse wouldn't go.
   The excuses are as varied as the individuals they come from. Everyone has their own reason for not reading or witnessing or going to church or whatever it is the Lord has instructed you to do. But I want to pose this question to you , are those reasons you have going to stand when you come before Christ as your judge? What can you say to him when he says to you why didn't you obey me when I told you to do this? Do you think its going to be all that important then that you couldn't get your kids ready to go to church? or that you had to get your laundry done? or whatever excuse you have for what you didn't do that he commanded you to do?
   Is it going to matter that you say but Lord I did this for you instead? To obey is better than sacrifice. Sometimes we do things just because he is testing us to see if we will obey him. Do you think Abraham wanted to sacrifice Isaac? But he had the faith that the boy would live. Nonetheless he took and and even got so far as to raising the knife to slay him when the Lord stopped him. But he obeyed and God honored that obedience. Abraham didn't have any doubt that he would be taking Isaac with him home. He told the young men that came with him to wait here while he and the lad went yonder to worship and and come again to you. (Genesis 22:5) This was an act of faith speaking out. He knew that by obeying God even if he slew his son God would bring him back to life. When Isaac asked his father about the lamb he told Isaac the Lord will provide. But Abraham was obedient. He didn't let anything stand in his way of what God told him to do.
   That's the way we need to be today let nothing stand in our way of obeying. He may start you out with a little thing, I want you to go to this church. If we obey then he will trust us with other things. Then he may give you a little bit bigger task. He may trust you to go pray for someone or some other little thing but we cannot expect to do the mighty works if we have not learned to obey in the small things.
   When teaching a child to cook you don't take them into the kitchen and say here I want a seven course meal, no you take them and teach them the little things in cooking first. So it is the same way with God he won't let us do deliverances and perform miracles until we have proven we can handle the smaller things first. We may think we have done these great works but remember Satan is the master of deception, he will deceive the very elect if he can. When we learn to handle the small things God will entrust us to the bigger ones.
Even within the parable of the talents we find the master did not give the servant who wasn't a good steward of the one talent ruler over many things, instead it was taken from him because he was not faithful in doing what he could with that talent. He didn't do what he knew he should have. We have many examples throughout the Bible where we are instructed to obey and be faithful over a few things. It may start out by being faithful about reading your Bible or going to church. If we are not faithful in this how can we expect to become a powerhouse doing signs and miracles for God? If we refuse to obey him and let the little cares of the world stand in our way how can we ever hope to become the powerhouse for God that we desire? We must strive toward the mark of the high calling and let nothing hinder us in the way we should go.

You all have a blessed day.