Reason #923
Obedience trumps convenience. At least it should. Our concern should be about what doing what is right, not what is easy. Because sometimes ease and convenience are misleading. Sometimes they trick you into thinking one thing yet delivering another.
I finished my Gideon bible study tonight, and I have to admit, I am always sad when a bible study comes to an end. I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface and that I still have so much to learn. And tonight's lesson was challenging. Do I take the easy way out? Do I simply rely on my good intentions to please the Lord? I have to admit that sometimes I do. Sometimes I do the minimum, feeling good about myself by comparison, and I figure God must feel the same. But God is most pleased when we completely obey Him, not "mostly" obey Him.
This is a struggle. It's hard to be selfless when you're first tendency is to be selfish. I find myself bending to my flesh all the time. And the truth is, it's not the big stuff that gets me. It's the little stuff. It's staying up too late so that I'm too tired to get up early and spend time with God in the morning. It's watching TV at night rather than writing in my prayer journal. It's spending time seeing who is doing what on Facebook rather than spending time reading God's word. It's letting myself get angry over the little things when I know I should be more patient and forgiving. It's doing whatever I feel like doing when I want to rather than doing what I know I should be doing. I guess you could say I find myself spending a lot of time "mostly" devoted to the Lord than being completely devoted.
And so we have to be careful. We can't just believe that because we aren't murdering, stealing, cheating, becoming addicts, or breaking one of the "top 10" we're okay. The little things add up, and before you know it, you're pretty far away. We've moved and we didn't even realize it. And all along, we thought were just fine. We figured our general kindness and our good behavior would do the trick, but we've come to notice that we can't really feel Him anymore. We know He's there, but we wonder why He's so far away.
That's what convenience does. It's the calm little wave that pulls us out to sea. The thing that keeps us afloat but floating in the wrong direction. Floating further away than we wanted to be, and we've got to swim long and hard to get back. If only we had been obedient. If we had done the things we knew we should have been doing all along, we'd be fine. We'd be right where we needed to be, close to the Lord. We wouldn't be starting from square 1, and we wouldn't be overwhelmed about the thought of trying to get back there in the first place.
Being obedient is rarely, if ever, convenient. But being obedient is beneficial. Obedience honors the Lord, and the Lord honors the obedient. Obedience draws us closer to Him, and when we choose to obey God, other people see His power reflected in our lives. It's not easy to be selfless, but God can help us. He can help us give up the addiction, put down the food, cut up the credit card, manage our time better, sever the ties in that relationship, or keep our emotions in check. In the end, we'll be better off, more blessed, for picking God's way over what seems to be the easy way. And, after we've done it every which way, we come to find out that really, the best way is always God's way.
#923 - Because obedience results in blessings and keeps us near Him.
"Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him." - Psalm 128:1
I finished my Gideon bible study tonight, and I have to admit, I am always sad when a bible study comes to an end. I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface and that I still have so much to learn. And tonight's lesson was challenging. Do I take the easy way out? Do I simply rely on my good intentions to please the Lord? I have to admit that sometimes I do. Sometimes I do the minimum, feeling good about myself by comparison, and I figure God must feel the same. But God is most pleased when we completely obey Him, not "mostly" obey Him.
This is a struggle. It's hard to be selfless when you're first tendency is to be selfish. I find myself bending to my flesh all the time. And the truth is, it's not the big stuff that gets me. It's the little stuff. It's staying up too late so that I'm too tired to get up early and spend time with God in the morning. It's watching TV at night rather than writing in my prayer journal. It's spending time seeing who is doing what on Facebook rather than spending time reading God's word. It's letting myself get angry over the little things when I know I should be more patient and forgiving. It's doing whatever I feel like doing when I want to rather than doing what I know I should be doing. I guess you could say I find myself spending a lot of time "mostly" devoted to the Lord than being completely devoted.
And so we have to be careful. We can't just believe that because we aren't murdering, stealing, cheating, becoming addicts, or breaking one of the "top 10" we're okay. The little things add up, and before you know it, you're pretty far away. We've moved and we didn't even realize it. And all along, we thought were just fine. We figured our general kindness and our good behavior would do the trick, but we've come to notice that we can't really feel Him anymore. We know He's there, but we wonder why He's so far away.
That's what convenience does. It's the calm little wave that pulls us out to sea. The thing that keeps us afloat but floating in the wrong direction. Floating further away than we wanted to be, and we've got to swim long and hard to get back. If only we had been obedient. If we had done the things we knew we should have been doing all along, we'd be fine. We'd be right where we needed to be, close to the Lord. We wouldn't be starting from square 1, and we wouldn't be overwhelmed about the thought of trying to get back there in the first place.
Being obedient is rarely, if ever, convenient. But being obedient is beneficial. Obedience honors the Lord, and the Lord honors the obedient. Obedience draws us closer to Him, and when we choose to obey God, other people see His power reflected in our lives. It's not easy to be selfless, but God can help us. He can help us give up the addiction, put down the food, cut up the credit card, manage our time better, sever the ties in that relationship, or keep our emotions in check. In the end, we'll be better off, more blessed, for picking God's way over what seems to be the easy way. And, after we've done it every which way, we come to find out that really, the best way is always God's way.
#923 - Because obedience results in blessings and keeps us near Him.
"Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him." - Psalm 128:1
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