Obedience – Your Want To

So… I need to lose weight.  The svelt 23-year-old, 123-pound, running-3-miles-a-day person is long gone, turning into a 50-year-old, 167 pound, couch sitting person.  I know HOW to lose weight (eat right, move more), but it’s the WANT to that’s been plaguing me.

I WANT to lose weight, but apparently I don’t WANT to badly enough to eat right and move more.  I don’t WANT to eat right and move more.  I WANT to eat junk food and sit on the couch.  Actually, I don’t mind exercising… but I’m a social exerciser.  At one time, I was walking over a mile a day with my neighbor.  But she broke her foot and I stopped walking!

It’s the eating right that seems to be a problem.  I know I’m supposed to eat fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains.  Sounds like a no-brainer, right?  Yeah, but broccoli doesn’t taste as good as a hot dog.  Actually, broccoli doesn’t taste as good as ANYTHING.  And neither do Brussel sprouts (yes, I’ve tried them… just this past weekend as a matter of fact).  You see, I was raised on hot dogs and plain spaghetti noodles (butter and cheese only, please).  When I was a kid, that’s all my newly divorced dad knew how to cook, and I was a very picky eater anyway.  I’m living proof that you can go through college, eating only packaged crackers, hot dogs, and ramen noodles for four years and not die.  But I digress…

So it’s not a lack of head knowledge… I have all that.  It’s a WANT to.  So I picked up the book Made to Crave by Lysa Terkeurst yesterday in which Lysa shared her own weight loss struggle and journey to victory, and she said right there in the first chapter that she weighed 167 pounds.  Hark!  The Lord was getting my attention. 

She went on to say that her book was not about all the nutritional know-how surrounding weight loss, but finding your WANT to. Perfect!  Just what I need!

I’m happily reading along when she started stepping on my toes.  On page 16, she said,

When Jesus says, “Follow me,” it’s not an invitation to drag our divided heart alongside us as we attempt to follow hard after God.  When Jesus wants us to follow Him – really follow Him – it’s serious business.  Here’s how Jesus describes it:  “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34). 

Uh oh.  I’ve been this way before.  Follow me means doing things Jesus’ way.  Doing things He asks you to do.  Whether you want to or not.  The Gospel is full of phrases like “crucify your flesh” and “deny yourself” and “pick up your cross.” 

And the Lord dropped something into my spirit.  It’s really NOT about “finding” my WANT to.  It’s about submitting MY want to, to JESUS’s want to!

So what was my immediate reaction… overwhelming joy that I had this amazing spiritual revelation?  Um… not so much.  My reaction was more like the kid who says, “You’re not the boss of me” with his arms crossed and his lips poked out.  And isn’t that the rub for all of us?  Deciding whether or not we’ll allow Jesus “to be the boss of me?” 

I’ve heard it said that salvation is a one-time thing… Asking Jesus to be your Savior, saving you from your sins.  But making Him your Lord is a daily thing, sometimes moment by moment.  “Lord” means He’s in charge.  He IS the boss of me. 

So let’s break this down.  I make Jesus the Lord of my life means He gets to tell me what to do, and I can choose to obey him.  What’s the risk in that?  He’s the creator and master of the universe.  Pretty sharp guy.  He deserves to be in charge. 

And oh by the way, He loves me so much He died for me.  I think I can trust a guy like that.  So what’s the problem?

I think it’s several things:

1.   We don’t REALLY believe that Jesus is for us.  Religion has so polluted our minds that we don’t always believe that God loves us and wants to bless us.  Religion has told us that God is really just waiting on us to screw up so He can zap us.  That’s not our God’s character!!  Read the Bible, people!  Every time Jesus came into contact with ANYONE, He healed them, blessed them, delivered them from demons, and raised them from the dead!
2.   We are afraid of what Jesus might ask us to do.  If I choose to obey Him, He may ask me to do something awful like go to deepest darkest Africa and eat monkey meat.  Yes, He may indeed tell you to do that.  But my pastor, Jentezen Franklin, says that if God calls you to deepest darkest Africa and makes you eat monkey meat, you will LOVE the taste of monkey meat!  When we first started attending Free Chapel, I remember standing in the balcony one Sunday and the Lord told me to serve with the youth.  Now at our previous church, I had served with the children’s ministry because that’s where my kids were.  Serve with the youth?  Teenagers?  With their pimply faces, stinky bodies, and raging hormones?  You’ve got to be kidding me!  But I was obedient, and now I love those kids!!  Pimply faces, stinky bodies, raging hormones and all!  God has changed my heart.  That’s the only explanation I have for it!
3.    We really don’t want to have someone else be the boss.  We like going our own way.  But ask yourself… has your way worked yet?  Hmmm.  If you look at my previously described body condition, I think the answer is no.  Now Jesus is a gentleman.  He won’t MAKE you do anything.  Even Jonah, when God swallowed him up inside a fish, didn’t HAVE to go to preach to Ninevah.  He could’ve decided to let that fish digest him.  Or he could’ve run the other way again when the fish spat him back up onto land.  No, Jesus won’t MAKE you do anything.  To the last, you have free will.  However, He will let you suffer the consequences of your disobedience.  Whether that’s getting stagnant where you are, or taking another lap around the proverbial mountain in the wilderness, He will let you make your own decision.  I like the Facebook post that says, “You are free to make your own decisions, but you are not free from the consequences of your decisions.”    

Fine.  I get it.  It’s best to be obedient.  Jesus loves me and knows what’s best for me.  But can you show me in the Bible someone who decided to let someone else be the boss? 

Umm… Hello?  Remember the Garden of Gethsemane?  Jesus Himself didn’t want to go to the cross.  He pled with the Father to take that cup away from Him.  Wasn’t there another way?

Doesn’t that give you hope?  Even Jesus, the Son of God, struggled with obeying the Father.  Struggled with the VERY hard thing that the Father was asking him to do.  Frankly, eating right doesn’t even MAKE the scale of “hard things to do” when you put crucifixion on the other end of the scale. 

So yes, Jesus struggled with what the Father was asking him to do.  But He did it anyway.  “Not My will but Thine be done.”  Look it up… Matthew 26:39, Mark 14:36, and Luke 22:42. 

And aren’t we all glad that Jesus said yes?  That He was obedient even to death on the cross?  His obedience, his “yes,” was the most important thing to all of us.  Without His obedience, we’d all be lost and going to hell.  There would be no salvation, no relationship with the Father. 

So let me ask you… how important is your “yes?”  How important is your obedience?  How many lives will be changed when you finally submit to the plan the Father has for you?  Whether it’s to lose a few pounds so that you can be healthier, live stronger and live longer to fulfill God’s purpose for your life, or whether it’s to finally answer the call He has on your life.  To finally let Jesus be the boss of you.  How many tens, hundreds or even thousands of lives will be impacted by your “yes?”

Your “yes” matters

Back in 2001/2002 we were considering moving.  We really wanted to pull the kids out of the ungodly public school system and put them in private Christian school, and we thought moving to an area with Christian schools close by was the solution.  I was praying about it at 2:00 in the morning, while rocking my baby Bradley back to sleep.  “Lord, please help us sell our house so we can move and put the kids in Christian school!”

And I heard the Lord say in my spirit, “Have you ever thought about homeschooling?”

“HA!  Homeschooling?  Really, Lord?  You’d have to change so much about ME for me to homeschool!”

He said, “Exactly.”

So…. Thus began our homeschooling adventure.  I didn’t want to homeschool, but eventually I said “yes.”  For many years, however, I thought it was just a back-up plan to the fact that we couldn’t afford private Christian school.  Then one day just recently the Lord told me that homeschooling the kids had been His plan all along.  Not Plan B, but Plan A!

And one Wednesday night, I saw the fruit of my “yes” (albeit an unenthusiastic “yes” at the time).  One of our youth pastors had asked some of the youth leaders to pray in the balcony during the service.  He said he had a hard word for the kids, an in-your-face kind of message that he wanted prayer covering for.  So I went up to the balcony to pray.  I could see everything that was going on down on the floor.  Before Pastor Shane could even preach, the Holy Spirit fell on some of the students, and they flooded the altar.  I could see my now-14-year-old son Bradley kneeling and praying with some of those kids. Then he moved over to another one of his friends who has been struggling, and asked him to go the altar with him.  Then he went and included yet another friend who is trying to find where he fits in the youth group.  Bradley was ministering to his friends!

And then I saw Victoria.  She was kneeling and praying over a student who has some severe challenges.  She wept and prayed over that girl for 45 minutes!  She was ministering to her friends as well!

So was my “yes” to homeschooling important?  You better believe that those kids wouldn’t be ministering like that at the church we are in if I hadn’t been obedient to the Lord. 

What was the “hard word, in-your-face” message that night?  Obedience.  Taking up your cross like Jesus did.  Reach out to your friends and neighbors with the love of Jesus.  Win souls for Him.  Fulfill the great commission.  Obedience pays off.  Obedience will be rewarded.  They showed clips of the Passion of the Christ on the screen.  Jesus’s amazing obedience to the Father to endure such a horrific experience. 

Jesus’s “yes” mattered.  My “yes” matters.   And your “yes” matters too.

Father God, please help us to be obedient to you.  Help us to see that our obedience is important.  It has eternal consequences not only for us, but for our families and everyone we meet.  Help us want to say “yes.”

First Time Obedience -- Part 2

3/26/15

Well, it happened again.  Yes, Lord, I will write a blog.  Yes, Lord, I will do it immediately.  And I did.  Monday.  And I did post it on blogspot, but then I didn’t link it to FB or send out an email alert to anyone so they could actually READ it!  I’m pretty sure that’s called partial obedience.  And like delayed obedience, partial obedience is really DISobedience!

So this time I will post this article AND I’ll actually let people know that I’ve written it!

When God says the same thing over and over and over again

When God is trying to tell me something, He knows that I don’t always listen the first time (see previous blog post).  So he has to tell me multiple times.   In various ways.  Kind of like the time He was dealing with me about forgiveness (a subject He apparently has to deal with me on frequently).  Every sermon I heard in church during that season was on forgiveness.  Every CD I listened to had to do with forgiveness.  Every television preacher was preaching about forgiveness.  Every book I picked up had to do with forgiveness.  I even got lost out in the country driving home late one night and had to turn around in a church parking lot.  What did the sign on the front of the church say Sunday’s sermon would be about?  Forgiveness!!  I think if I had flipped open the yellow pages, I would have turned to 1-800-FORGIVE!!

He’s at it again.  This time it’s about doing things the first time He tells me to do it.  Not waiting.  Not delaying.  Not continuing to pray about it.  Act on it!  Just this morning, I read an excellent article about the time Peter stepped out of the boat and walked on water.  You remember the story in Matthew 14:22-33 MSG: 

As soon as the meal was finished, he insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the people. With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.

Meanwhile, the boat was far out to sea when the wind came up against them and they were battered by the waves. At about four o’clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water. They were scared out of their wits. “A ghost!” they said, crying out in terror. 

The disciples were freaking out!  And wouldn’t you?  Think about it… several of them are fishermen.  They’re used to the storms on the sea of Galilee… but seeing a PERSON walking on the water out in the middle of the sea?  That does NOT happen!  No wonder they were terrified!

But Jesus was quick to comfort them. “Courage, it’s me. Don’t be afraid.”

Sidenote:  The Amplified version says that Jesus said, “Take courage! I Am! Stop being afraid!”  Don’t you love that?  Jesus refers to Himself as “I Am,” the very name of God that Moses was given to tell the children of Israel who had sent him.  The GREAT I AM.  King of heaven and earth!  Master of the wind and waves!  That’s actually one of my favorite names for Jesus… I AM!  Not I was, not I will be sometime next week, but I AM right here, right now, in your circumstances, as ugly and dirty and scary as they may be, Jesus is I AM.  And because He is I AM we don’t have to be afraid!!

Peter, suddenly bold, said, “Master, if it’s really you, call me to come to you on the water.”

Don’t you love that?  Peter “suddenly bold.”  Don’t we need some “suddenly bold” moments?  When we just step out of the boat and do what we’re supposed to do?  As Benjamin Mee in the movie We Bought a Zoo says, “You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

STOP.  Just stop right now and think.  What do you need to be suddenly bold about?  What do you need 20 seconds of insane courage to do?  What have you been putting off until some other time?  Is it making certain phone call?  Writing an email?  Shaking a hand?   Breaking off a relationship that’s not good for you?  Speaking up for yourself?  Friends, we need to pray for those “suddenly bold” moments!  Pray for the Lord to give you 20 seconds of insane courage!  Because something great can come of it!

He said, “Come ahead.”

Okay, let’s hit the pause button here just for a moment.   Peter has just asked for something ridiculously impossible.  And really?  THAT was the first thing that popped into Peter’s mind when he saw Jesus on the water?  “Dude, that looks cool!  Can I do it too?”  Peter, Peter.  That impetuous nature of yours will get you in trouble someday… just ask a guy named Malchus a few chapters later about how his ear is doing after you cut it off and Jesus healed him.

Does Jesus say, “No you idiot… you’re only a human, you can’t walk on water like me!  I’m the Son of God!”  NO HE DOESN’T!!  He says, “Sure!  Come ahead!” 

Friends, He’s saying the same thing to us today!  Come ahead!  Come!  Do it now!  Do it before you have a chance to talk yourself out of it!  Come ahead!  Do it now!  Don’t let time or distractions or other things steal this opportunity from you!

You know the rest of the story.  Peter does step out of the boat.  He does walk on water.  And when he takes his eyes off Jesus, he begins to sink.  But here’s what Peter learned from that experience.

1)   He’s the only guy EVER besides Jesus to walk on water.  EVER.  Because Peter was suddenly bold, because he had 20 seconds of insane courage, he had an experience NO ONE else has ever had.  What amazing one of a kind experience are you missing out on because you won’t get out of your boat and do what God as called you to do?

      2)  Peter learned about faith in Jesus that day!  If God tells you to do it, you can!  I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.  THROUGH CHRIST Peter was able to do the miraculous, the ridiculously impossible!  How many times later in life did Peter recall that experience and allow that memory to strengthen him to do what he needed to do?  Like preach to 1000s on the day of Pentecost.  It was Peter who spoke first!  Just like the night on the boat, Peter stepped out in faith and preached boldly!  He actually called the Jewish men who were listening that day murderers!  That’s “suddenly bold,” isn’t it?  Peter knew, better than anyone else, if Jesus tells you to do it, you can!  Friends, that same Jesus will help you do what you need to do too!

      3)  And oh by the way, if you get into trouble, if you screw up and take your eyes off Jesus, like we all do at some time or another, Jesus won’t let you drown!  Peter learned that day that Jesus will be there to save you.     

Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus. But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, “Master, save me!”

 Jesus didn’t hesitate. He reached down and grabbed his hand.

Don’t you love that?  Jesus DIDN’T HESITATE!  Peter asked for help, and Jesus helped him.  What an amazing picture of Jesus’ love for us! 

Then he said, “Faint-heart, what got into you?”

The two of them climbed into the boat, and the wind died down. The disciples in the boat, having watched the whole thing, worshiped Jesus, saying, “This is it! You are God’s Son for sure!”

Friends, Jesus is God’s Son for sure.  We can put our trust and faith in that fact.  He loves us, He’s calling us, He will help us.  And He is indeed God’s Son for sure!

So I’m stepping out of my boat.  I will have amazing experiences writing a blog.  I can do this because Jesus says I can.  And if I screw up, which I most likely will, Jesus will not hesitate to save me.  And I do it all because I love and want to obey Jesus, God’s Son for sure.

Father God, we love you.  Thank you so much for loving us.  Thank you for calling us out of our boats onto the water so we can experience amazing things.  Father, remind us today what you’ve told us to do. Then like Peter, help us be suddenly bold so we can do it, whatever it is.  We know you are there right beside us saying “come ahead!”  And we know that if we mess up, you are there to catch us and not let us drown.   Thank you, Jesus for being God’s Son, for sure.  Amen.

First Time Obedience

3/23/15

As young parents, we took a course on Biblical child rearing, and one of the concepts was first time obedience.  It's a marvelous concept that the child should obey you the FIRST time you tell them to do something.  It keeps you from becoming a threatening, repeating parent.  You know the type... "Johnny, please pick up the toy.  Johnny, do you hear me?  Mommy told you to pick up the toy.  Don't make me tell you again.  Johnny... Johnny... are you listening to me, Johnny?  Mommy said pick up the toy.  If you don't do it, Mommy's going to spank you.  Johnny... Johnny... pick up the toy.  Now.  NOW!  PICK UP THE TOY NOW!" at which point, the mom has totally lost her cool, the veins are popping out of her forehead, and she's about to wallop Johnny with the first available flip flop, all because she didn't make him obey the first time.  Practicing first time obedience can actually keep your neighbors from calling DFACS on you, so it's a pretty good concept to learn.

First time obedience is what God asks for too.  He asks you to do something, and you do it.  The first time.  Without a thousand questions.  Without a long time passing in which you're really NOT listening to God, or you're pretending you don't hear Him, because you don't want to do what He tells you to do.

Kind of like the time the Lord told me to start using my home for Him.  He gave it to me to use for His Kingdom, and I wasn't doing anything.  Do I start a Bible study, Lord?  Prayer group?  Mom's morning out?  What do you want me to do?  That was around August 2010.

In October of 2010, I was attending our neighborhood HOA meeting, and one of my sweet neighbors sat down next to me and said she felt the Lord was going to chasten her if she didn't start something in the neighborhood like a Bible study or a prayer group or something.  You know, that's a great idea!  I think the Lord wants me to do something like that too!

February 2011 rolled around and another sweet neighbor called me on the phone and said she felt the Lord wanted her to start something in the neighborhood like a Bible study or a prayer group or something.  Humph.  I guess God's not going to let up on this one.

FINALLY, Mrs. First Time Obedience (NOT!) started a prayer group with those two sweet neighbors in March 2011, and the answers to prayer we have seen have been ASTOUNDING!  But what blessings did I miss by waiting 7 months to do what the Lord asked me to do?  I have asked God's forgiveness for that, believing that His grace covers my lack of first time obedience.

Hence, my very first post.  Mrs. First Time Obedience (NOT!) strikes again.  Actually, I started this blog two years ago, and had some pretty good stuff on here, but it was FAR too personal for me to share publicly, without permanently damaging certain familial relationships.  The Lord told me way back then to start my own blog.  He brought it up again last year.  And again just last month.  Yep, that's me.  First time obedience.

So here we are.  My first blog.  I'm not sure what the Lord will have me share or how often He will have me share.  My promise to you is that I will do a better job listening to Him and obeying Him the FIRST time when I blog.  My prayer is that my stories will encourage you, uplift you, and most importantly, draw you closer to Jesus.  He loves us, even when we don't practice first time obedience. And for that, I am VERY thankful!

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for loving us.  Thank you for loving us when we're disobedient.  Thank you for giving us second chances, or third chances, or even more.  Lord, help us to hear your voice today, and obey you the first time.  Help us to trust you so much that we know that whatever you ask us to do is for our own good.  Draw us ever closer to you.  In Jesus' Name.  Amen.