Tag Archives: following God

Incremental Obedience … God Leads in Steps NOT Leaps

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Incremental Obedience … God Leads in Steps NOT Leaps

Incremental Obedience…God Leads in Steps NOT Leaps

The phrase “leap of faith” is commonly used in Christian circles.  I’ve probably even used the term myself.  But did you know that this phrase is actually unscriptural?  God leads in steps NOT leaps.  We’re not frogs.  We’re humans.  Humans walk, not jump.  We need to learn how to practice incremental obedience via steps that God gives us.

God leads in steps NOT leaps. We’re not frogs. We’re humans—we walk. #incrementalobedience

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Previously, I  read through the devotional plan “How to Neighbor” by Pastor Craig Groeschel from Life.Church on the YouVersion Bible app.  It’s an excellent 10-day plan.  I highly recommend it.  In part of the plan, Pastor Craig is talking about Esther and her pivotal role in helping God’s people.  He mentioned that Esther had to take steps of incremental obedience…

“As a teen, Esther pushed back darkness and risked everything for her neighbors because Mordecai, her adoptive father, reminded her why she was alive “for such a time as this.” Think about this. Esther, and every other person who’s ever done anything valuable for God, basically just took incremental steps of obedience.”

The frequently quoted scripture, “Perhaps you were made…for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14) can apply to our lives too.  We will have “for such a time as this” moments throughout our lives.  Those moments will require steps, not leaps, of incremental obedience leading up to them.

Esther’s steps of incremental obedience

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Mistakes Can Turn Into Success

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Mistakes Can Turn Into Success. Look at these examples of bad turned good…

Mistakes Can Turn Into Success:  Look at these examples of bad turned good…

In a previous post, we talked about how our failures and mistakes can contribute to some of our insecurities.  We tend to beat ourselves up for the mistakes we make.  It never ceases to amaze me though how God can take our disobedience and mistakes and turn them into something beautiful.  He can take something that I completely messed up and then turn it around to be a blessing to me and to others.  

God can take our disobedience and mistakes and turn them into something beautiful.

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Did you know there are several products and inventions that came from mistakes?  To name a few…the Slinky, Penicillin, plastic, chocolate chip cookies (thank goodness for this mistake!), potato chips, the pacemaker, silly putty, safety glass, microwave ovens, corn flakes, Post-it notes (another one of my favorites!), x-rays, superglue, popsicles, vulcanized rubber (i.e. tires), and matches.  Here’s a fun read about the 20 Most Fascinating Accidental Inventions all originating from mistakes.  I personally believe many of these mistakes turned success were probably God-inspired.  There are stories throughout the Bible of mistakes turned success too.

God turned Jonah’s mistake into a success

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I Obey Right Away—Slow Obey Is No Obey

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I Obey Right Away—Slow Obey Is No Obey

When my kids were quite a bit younger in church they were taught the lesson “I obey right away”. A friend of mine who taught kindergarten later told me, “We add to that…Slow obey is no obey.” I’ve heard others say “Slow obedience is no obedience.” Personally, I prefer the catchy sing-song rhyme version. I loved both “obey” sayings together, so we’ve adopted them and used them quite a bit in our home. “I obey right away. Slow obey is no obey.” I usually only had to say the first two words of each phrase, and then the kids would finish the remainder, often with a pitiful sigh.

Sometimes it’s hard for kids to recognize these stalling tactics as disobedience. After all, they’re not giving an outright “no”. Therefore it appears less defiant on the surface.

Command: “Go clean your room.” Slow obey: “I will after I finish this video game.”

Command: “Finish your homework.” Slow obey: “I want to get a snack first.”

Command: “Eat your vegetables.” Slow obey: “I’m going to save them for last.”

Regardless though delayed obedience is still disobedience. Stalled obedience is still a form of rebellion. Postponing obedience is disregarding and challenging authority all the same. Thus, slow obey is no obey.

Slow obey…it’s not just kids who do it

It struck me one day that this isn’t just a lesson for kids obeying their parents. Delayed obedience (thus disobedience) is not limited just to kids. Not at all. In fact, adults are just as guilty, myself included. One of the biggest areas we are at fault is avoiding or stalling on instructions from God. We KNOW he’s asked us to do something, but we continue to put it off, sometimes indefinitely.

We, all of us, need to be reminded of this lesson when obeying God.

Why do we postpone obedience? Most of the time it’s because we just flat out don’t want to do whatever it is that has been asked of us. It’s potentially undesirable, or we want to avoid some kind of discomfort or inconvenience. Sometimes, we avoid obeying right away because we don’t understand the reason behind the request or directive. It may not make any sense to us, or it might even seem counterintuitive.

Slow obey to the prayer team

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Obedience to God Demonstrates Love and Trust

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Obedience to God Demonstrates Love and Trust

Obedience to God Demonstrates Love and Trust

We’ve been talking a little bit lately about obedience to God—some of the whys, hows, warnings, and scripture resources (links to previous posts at the bottom). I think I’ve written more on obedience lately because I have a lot of that written in my journals (what I often reference when writing my posts). Since, I have a lot written in my journals, this probably means that God is really trying to get this point through my thick head!

If I’m being totally honest with you, I have to admit that I often struggle with obedience to God—at least immediate obedience. I tend to argue, push back, and fight a lot when God asks me to do something I don’t really want to do. You know…a lot like a toddler! Toddler Tracy, that’s me when it comes to obeying God! Does anyone else relate? I don’t know why I fight so much though because it ALWAYS works out better than I imagined in the end.

Unfortunately what it really boils down to is that I apparently don’t really trust God, and I’m definitely not demonstrating my love for him when I ignore him or am defiant. These were some painful convictions I recently had. I’ve learned through reading the bible and from some devotions/messages how our obedience to God proves that we love him and demonstrates our trust. Today I’d like to share some examples of those insights with you.

If you love me, obey my commandments. John 14:15

About 5 years ago, I read through Rick Warren’s Daily Devotional—it’s a year reading plan in the bible app (or Bible.com). It’s an excellent plan that I highly recommend. Several of the devotions throughout the plan focused on obedience to God. Below is one that stood out to me about today’s topic.

Rick Warren’s Daily Devotional, Day 320

“Today, the word obey has a negative connotation. We view obedience as a forced, unwilling decision to do something we don’t want to do because we’re afraid of punishment. But that’s not the kind of obedience that’s in God’s Word. Obedience in the Bible means this: love + trust + action.

It starts with love, as Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” (NIV) Obedience comes from knowing that God loves you and you love him in return.

A lot of people think obedience is about fearing God, but God wants us to see obedience to him as a relationship of love. And out of love comes trust. If you trust what God is saying to you, and you believe that he loves you, then that will lead to action.

You need to have all three because action without love is just rote religion. And love without action is just mere talk.”[1]

What I wrote to myself this day…Don’t fight against God. Do you love God? Then keep his commandments—obey.

I KNOW God loves me, and I really do love God. So now I just need to turn this to trust, then to action. 

Obedience in the Bible means…love + trust + action. ~Rick Warren

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Loving means obeying

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Obey God—Build a Firm Foundation for Your Life

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Obey God—Build a Firm Foundation for Your Life

Obey God—Build a Firm Foundation for Your Life

Last week I put together a resource page with a list of helpful scriptures encouraging us to obey God. I mentioned that I would further discuss obedience to God and how it’s like a sturdy foundation on which to build a house/building. That’s what I’d like to discuss today. We’ll see how the Bible compares our obedience to building on stable foundations. Additionally, we’ll look at some of the purposes for a good foundation.

Learning to obey God creates and builds a stable and firm foundation on which we can build our life. A sturdy foundation in our lives will also help us to withstand the storms that may come in our lives.

My family likes to watch the television show Survivor. This season on Survivor a cyclone hit the island on which they were staying forcing them to evacuate one evening. They returned to find that their shelter, which had been built on sand (important point), had been torn to shreds. You can imagine how disheartening this was for them. This scene immediately brought to mind the scriptures in the Bible that address building on different types of foundations.

Obedience vs. Disobedience–2 types of foundations

When we listen and obey, it’s like building a house on a solid, firm foundation. It can be trusted, unlike a house built on shifting sand or without a foundation. Disobedience is like building a house on an untrustworthy foundation.

“So then, anyone who hears these words of mine and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded over, and the wind blew hard against that house. But it did not fall, because it was built on rock. But anyone who hears these words of mine and does not obey them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded over, the wind blew hard against that house, and it fell. And what a terrible fall that was!” Matthew 7:24-29 (GNT)

“So why do you keep calling me ‘Lord, Lord!’ when you don’t do what I say? I will show you what it’s like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then follows it. It is like a person building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against that house, it stands firm because it is well built. But anyone who hears and doesn’t obey is like a person who builds a house without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house, it will collapse into a heap of ruins.” Luke 6:46-49 (NLT)

Purposes of a good foundation

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Obedience to God–Do you need a leash?

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Obedience to God...I want to follow and obey God easily, willingly, and immediately...to be the type of person that does what I need to without a bridle or leash or tether to keep me in check or to make me go where I need to be.

Obedience to God–Do you need a leash?

“The LORD says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”” Psalm 32:8-9 (NLT)

When it comes to obedience to God, do you need a leash?

Lately, we’ve been doing some obedience training with our two dogs, Lucy and Daisy. One of the areas where we’ve been working with them is keeping them within safe boundaries, more specifically our front deck. We’re trying to teach them to stay on the deck and not get off without our permission. Most of the time they do a great job. However, this is still a work in progress.

Unfortunately, I discovered that they may not have been as fully and completely trained as I had thought. Several weeks ago, I decided to take the dogs out onto the front deck with me in the morning. This wasn’t unusual since we’d been training them to stay on the deck for quite some time now. They had been enjoying coming out with me in the mornings as I did my quiet time outside.

I had been spoiling the dogs a bit allowing them to come out more often than usual because the kids were away at their grandparents for the week, and the dogs were missing them. They had been very good and obedient…up to this point. On this particular morning I noticed Lucy perked up immediately and started staring out into the front yard. I turned my gaze to where she was staring. Instant panic struck as soon as I saw the object of Lucy’s attention. It was a bunny rabbit.

So what’s wrong with a bunny?

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Obeying God Should Come With A Warning Label

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Obeying God Should Come With A Warning Label! Warning: Obeying God may cause serious side effects to occur. Some people have reported financial trouble, health problems, criticism, false accusations, betrayal, relational trouble, natural disasters, legal trouble, physical assault, and life threatening events. In some cases death has occurred. This is not a complete list of possible side effects.

Obeying God Should Come With A Warning Label

I’ve decided that obeying God should really come with a warning label. I mean really, people should be warned to expect opposition and attacks when they start obeying God. Quite honestly the devil doesn’t like our obedience. He knows the good that will come of it. He knows it’s dangerous for him. So, He’s going to fight back. People need to know to expect it.

Warning: Obeying God may cause serious side effects to occur.  Some people have reported financial trouble, health problems, criticism, false accusations, betrayal, relational trouble, natural disasters, legal trouble, physical assault, property damage, life threatening events, and things just going wrong in general.  In some cases death has occurred.  This is not a complete list of possible side effects.

When we step out and start obeying God, we’re going to have some attacks from the devil. It’s inevitable. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll experience attack every time, but it is a definite possibility. The more we expect it, the better prepared we can be.

Somebody warned me about obeying God

One of the best things anybody did for me was give me similar advice. When I first started volunteer teaching at Glory House, the director, Susie, told me expect attacks and expect things to go wrong. It kind of actually took me by surprise. At the same time, however, I felt a bit relieved because I had already indeed started to experience exactly that!

I was sitting in her office during my interview Continue reading →