Sunday morning retuning: Our guest missionary, Evan Evans, brought a strong challenge Sunday about a theology of risk. Is God stirring you to be more extreme in some area of your walk with Him? Are you trusting Him to give you the courage you need to face that risk? He’s able!
For well over a year now we have been talking about discipleship in terms of loving Jesus, growing together and serving our world. These phrases are simple yet powerful reminders of what Christ calls us to as we walk a step behind Him. I want to unpack one aspect of the first of those statements for a couple minutes.
We explain loving Jesus in this way. We love Jesus through a lifestyle of worship, prayer and humble obedience. On first blush those first words are pretty obvious. Worship is fitting for the One who saved my soul. Prayer is crucial to nurture my faith and my relationship with the Lover of my soul. But humble obedience, that seems a little more nebulous to me. Humility is not very appealing to be honest, and obedience, well…I will sing to Jesus (only a slim dimension of my worship), and pray when things get tough ( if not at other times), but obey? This came home to me recently.
I was praying for one of my boys who had recently struggled with obeying. Not only, doing the thing, but with his attitude in it. Ever happen to you? Come on now. As I was praying fro my son, my Father spoke to me. He gently reminded me that he had recently told me to do something that I have failed to do.
Last Sunday, as Pastor Myron preached, a situation came to mind. I felt like God was telling me I should lead my family to trust God for His direction and provision by having us pray about something specifically with regard to a need we have. Nine days have passed and I have yet to bring that up. We have prayed together on numerous times since then, but I have forgotten to lead them. And the impression I had was that we should not just pray once, but pray until He did something. I did not intentional disobey, but neither did I intentionally obey. I am going to do that today.
How about you? As you grow in your love for Jesus, what is He asking of you that you need to humbly obey. You will find yourself loving Him more even as you express your love through obedience. I pray you will do it today.
Jesus, give me the courage to humbly obey what you are asking me to do. I love you and I want to show you through my humble obedience.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy
