Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 87. Obedience is the Path to God’s Presence and Provision (enough said)

Hello human.

I think obedience is how we know God more deeply, how we connect to His presence. When He asks us to obey His commands, He is literally asking us to obey His nature. He created us in His image. This is a promise:  that we take on His attributes when we do the things He does.

I talk a lot about my free will. It is more complex than just saying that I am definitively going to give it up to God. That I do it once and ride His Will through my life. It doesn’t work that way. My free will is the only sacrifice worthy of God’s altar. I have nothing else He wants. I have nothing else to give that will benefit my eternal life.

I think about it like this:

My free will is my faculty to choose. Within each choice is the motivation of trust.

When I make the decision to turn my free will toward Him, I put my mental imprint on what I value. God, the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is as far as my own motivation can take me. When I confirm this belief, my heart opens to conviction.

This is when my heart receives God’s faithfulness. His faithfulness divinely persuades me.  To do what?

To trust. So much so that I will do what He tells me to do. I will obey.

Obedience Deepens Our Trust

When this happens, I am enabled to take the next step to action.  It is that obedience, that first conscious step that defines trust. When we are obedient, we are so because we trust God. When we obey, we deepen that trust.

My BUOY today comes from deeper water. Seeking deeper trust.

I will obey…

Not because I want to be good. Although I do.

Not because He tells me to. Although sometimes, this is the simplest way to get me off the spiritual couch. 

Not because bad things will happen to me, if I don’t.

I will obey because I want to know Him better.

I want His presence to flood my life, my heart, my soul. His distant swell that comes from hundreds of miles out at sea, where only He stands tall in bottomless waters.

In episode 86 I reflected that if we seek the goodness of being near to Him, life becomes divinely practical.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 says “pray continually.”

Praying for and pursuing God’s presence and provision is how we let God reign in our lives.

Obedience is the Path to God’s Presence

Obedience is the path to God’s presence and provision. God holds His universe together as He speaks. His presence is essential. His providence is beyond the universe we can imagine. I remind us of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 23:24 “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the LORD.

Let me put this another way… obedience is not just doing what God tells us to do, what His Son tells us to do.

Obedience is doing what God does. Living in His image.

Obedience is doing what Jesus did on earth.

So, no. 1:  Obedience is doing what we know to do ahead of time– the Bible is super clear about how to behave. Reading His Word is how we learn to love others, to respond to adverse situations, to share the Gospel, to anticipate Jesus coming back. Everything.

When we do this ahead of time, without some catastrophic, dramatic circumstance as a prompt, we avoid that circumstance. When I seek the righteous behavior of Jesus, I side-step sin, step over it, go around it, never even see it. When we practice preventative spiritual healthcare, we free our mind, our heart and free will to serve others. Because we aren’t dealing with “life stuff” our sin has created to throw darkness on our path.

And no. 2:  Obedience is standing ready – to act and react. Obeying God’s Will triggers His provision far beyond what we could imagine. It also often comes with circumstances that challenge us, make us uncomfortable, are inconvenient, stressful, scary, and in that moment, human, we feel ill-equipped to do it.

To stand ready. But it is exactly this mindset that we are told to have to watch for Jesus. (Matthew 24: 42-43) So obedience is a pretty amazing training ground for acting when God calls us to serve others.

The God prompt is unmistakable, undeniable, infallible. A God prompt, my God’s prompt, is not a nudge or wink, or whisper. It is a good strong prompt. It resonates through my spirit. And comes at me wave after wave. It pulls me into the presence of His courage, His power.

It’s easy to acknowledge His prompt for blessings and good things.  But He also prompts me to serve others that will strengthen my capacity to love others, to see others the way He does.

My God Prompts Compared to What Jesus Did?

Because God’s nature is about serving others. He sent His only beloved Son to serve humanity.

So, let’s be clear about what Jesus did:  He gave up His divine privilege for me, and you human.

Philippians 2:6-8

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

 

This is the Jesus bar. The only bar by which to measure my response to God’s prompts.

So here are two questions to consider based on what Jesus did, two questions I ask myself.

1. What privileges might I give up to obey God in that moment?

Briefly, my typical reactions:

Having a hard day and too tired to help…

It interrupts “me” time…

I need more sleep…

I don’t know how to help…

I am too short on cash…

I feel down today… not any good to help lift someone up.

Totally throws off my schedule…

So inconvenient…

So, I give up rest, alone time, sleep, feeling in control, saving my resources, time to nurse feeling sorry for myself, serving my priorities, my convenience, my comfort. I need to go to the next level. These are lightweight privileges that tell me I am not hearing the abundance of God prompts that make my life a servant-life.

2. A question from Jesus, Luke 6:46 – “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?

I can tell you why. Because human nature is always in a battle with God. But we can choose to be in a battle for God, and against a sin culture, or for a sin culture, and against God.

If for God, it is an all-in proposition. A prophet in Biblical times before Jesus had God’s omnipresence on his mind without ceasing. It was the work of a prophet. Our pursuit of God’s presence is a prophetic way to live. To listen to God, to listen for God, and to speak in His name. In the footsteps of Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, King David, so many.

Obedience—Aligning our Free Will with God’s Will

When we sacrifice our free will for God’s Will so we can live in His presence, in His image, He makes His home with us. And He wants that for every human.

John 14: 22-23

 

22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

 

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

Share the good news of the Gospel, human. If we love Jesus, obedience follows.