Trust and Obey

Touching Others

I heard an anonymous quote recently that really touched me,

"Someone is standing on the other side of obedience"

I don't know about you but for me I often only think of obedience in terms of myself, but that is wrong. We are obedient for a purpose. Our obedience reaches out and touches others in ways we can only imagine.

I remember an incident years ago. I was in a diner in a downtown area and saw an older man, rather shabbily dressed alone at a table as I was leaving. I had the overwhelming feeling that I should speak to him. Nothing more than hello, but that I should acknowledge him. I shrugged it off thinking why would I speak to this total stranger, a man I didn't know no less. When I walked out without speaking I never forgot him. Who would imagine that all these years later I would still remember a time, seemingly unimportant, but one where I was disobedient to the call of God.

I look back and wonder what difference that small 'hello' could have possibly made to this man but something inside of me, to this day, knows that it would have. How often do we shrug off that quiet voice of God. God asks us to do things that often we would consider to be quite strange. Things that make us feel uncomfortable.

Who does God want you to speak to?

Trust and Obey

I think the reason for this is that God wants to know if we really trust Him. The old hymn went like this:

"Trust and obey

For there's no other way

To be happy in Jesus

But to trust and obey."

Think about the times God has asked you to leave your comfort zone and step out for Him. Has he asked you to visit a nursing home or to talk to your dear friend who doesn't know God about your relationship with the Lord or to start a Bible study or to be friends with someone who has none?

Sometimes God asks us to build a boat on dry land or speak to people far off about Him even though they are His enemies or walk on water or face a giant. The only way Noah or Jonah or Peter or David did these things was by totally trusting God.

Obedience Can Be Small

Maybe we obey with seemingly no results, but how do we know what seed has been planted in people? The smallest word can mean so much. Many years ago when I was pregnant with my first child (I was 39) I spoke to a friend about my concerns about my pregnancy and fears for my child. My dear friend said this, "It's a gift and not a test." Seven little words that calmed my soul. I know God spoke through her that day.

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

James 1: 22-25

Created for Good Works

Many times our obedience calls us to change our behavior. God seeks for us to be better Christians. Our behavior towards others most definitely matters. When we show more love, more patience, more forgiveness the affects on our family and those around us are incalculable.

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10

Created for Good Works

Blessed

My prayer for you, and for myself, is that when God speaks I will listen and I will obey. He may speak through a pastor, through His word or through our prayers or however he chooses, but obedience will be blessed.

"Know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

Deuteronomy 4: 39-40

Hope

In I Peter 1: 13-16 we read:

"Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy." "

Our hope is always in God's grace and we as His obedient children must make every effort to be holy. The holiness of our obedience is how someone sees Christ. Those people are on the other side of our obedience.