Obedience

God would never give you an impossible task

Sometimes God directs us down paths that seem impossible, but if you think outside the box, we’ll see that God is prompting us to kickstart our creative juices. For example, in my neck of the woods, I learned an old saying as a child: “If a man hates you, he will give you a basket to fetch water.” At first glance, it would appear futile to bring water in a basket. But with a bit of creativity, you realize that getting water in a basket is not impossible.
There are examples in the Bible of great men who scoffed at God’s instructions because they thought the tasks were impossible. For instance, Jonah refused to go to Nineveh, and Moses tried to talk his way out of going down to Egypt. But they later learned that God would never give you an assignment unless he equips you with the necessary tools to do the job. Hence, with Christ, all things are possible.

Walking in Jesus’ footsteps requires total obedience to God’s commands

English: The Ten Commandments, illustration fr...

English: The Ten Commandments, illustration from a Bible card published by the Providence Lithograph Company (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For many years, I convince myself that SELF INDULGENCE was the biggest problem a Christian face; then as I grow older and wiser, I realize that I, like all Christians have difficulty obeying God’s commands consistently. The enemy has sown the seed of disobedience in our hearts, which created a struggle between good and evil. Therefore, being obedient to God is the single most difficult thing to do in our Christian lives.

It all started in the Garden of Eden. “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because if you eat from that tree, you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). It did not matter that God told the first family that death is the penalty for breaking the rules; nonetheless, both man and the woman decided to disobey God command anyway and eat from the forbidden tree. Since then, the human race has had a rather difficult time, obeying God rules.Disobeying God commands leads to sin.

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible has a lot to say about obedience. In the story of the Ten Commandments, we see how valuable the concept of obedience is to God. Deuteronomy 11:26–28 sums it up like this: “Behold, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command, you today. A curse if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods, which you have, not known”.

Let’s be honest, disobedience runs rampant in the Church. It was a problem before Jesus’ time, and it is a problem today. No one among us can honestly claim that he or she is blameless in this regard. Nevertheless, we must endeavor to achieve total obedience to God if we ever hope to walk in Jesus’ footsteps; but, that can only happen if we surrender our entire beings to Him. A good place to start is to practice what we preach.