Tag: obedience

How to Have Success

Many people strive for success, but are we striving in the right direction?

For some it’s all about selfish ambition, doing anything to reach the top, being the most famous, getting the most sales, having the fanciest car, having the biggest house in the subdivision, most followers on social media, etc. These are the ways of those who are striving in a different direction to get to the top. The challenges they face will be fought in their own power and will.

  • HOW TO HAVE SUCCESS

There is a God who knows our every need and wants to bless us. He sees our weaknesses and struggles and offers help everyday. Whether it be with our job, our family, our business. In Him there is no striving but resting in His Grace, knowing that whatever challenges you may face, He has already gone before you and by faith we will overcome.

In Joshua 1, God tells Joshua, who is now leading the people after Moses’ death, to “Be strong and courageous” and then He says ” Being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.” This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

God gives us two ways to have success

#1 – OBEDIENCE

Actions speak louder than words, are we who we say we are? Our obedience to God says all.

#2 – READ/MEDITATE ON THE WORD

The Word of God is our roadmap our instructions on how to live a life of success.

STEPPING FORWARD

STEPPING FORWARD

What is holding you back from going forward? Is it fear? Is it your current job? What is it that is keeping you away from moving closer to Him? All of us has a mandate from God but it’s up to us to carry it out.

In 1 Kings 19 we read that Elijah had cast his mantle upon Elisha as he passed by him.

 

Elisha had two choices whenever that happened he could have:

1. Ignored Elijah

or

2. obeyed and followed

 

 

” So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him. 20 And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” And he said to him, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?”21 And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him.” 

 We see that there was plenty for Elisha to keep busy with; he had a livelihood but he didn’t sell it. He sacrificed the oxen and gave it to the townspeople to eat. I call that commitment, and in order to step forward in the destiny God calls you in, we must step away from our security.
“To step forward in your destiny,
You have to step away from your security”
What will you have to sacrifice in order to move ahead?
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#Surrender

He wants all of us

 

For a long time I thought giving God most of me was good enough. I thought since I have a great prayer life, I’m involved in a ministry every week at my church I thought what more could I give. But It felt spiritually like I kept hitting a wall. I was restricted in a way that I could not push through.

From your attitude to your finances, He wants to be involved in every detail of our lives. It’s not just the parts we allow Him, He wants control of it all. That’s the hardest part sometimes is the letting go part. But I’ve found out over the years that total surrenderance is key to have a fulfilling life in God. Just like the disciples we too must leave everything behind us. Do I mean go off and live in the wilderness, to quit your job, tell your wife and kids, “see ya”. No, I mean spiritually. When we are saved. Jesus changes our hearts, changes what our desires and passions are to become more of what He wants to do through us. But that only comes through surrendering.

We are called to be set apart. Not to act like the World, but to have a new mindset. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; The old has gone.” Have you gave up everything? Have you decreased so He can increase? If not, I pray that you will make that choice today. God doesn’t want partial obedience He wants obedience. Don’t give God pieces of your heart, give Him all!

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What Faith is: A Readiness to Obey

what faith is

Noah’s faith: Part 3 of 7

1 Samuel 12:24 Only fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.

Only fear the Lord . . . for consider what great things He has done for you: All of our service, all of our obedience, all of our love for God should be put in this context. We do it because of the great things He has done for us. We don’t serve God so as to persuade Him to do great things for us. He has done the great things, and asks us to receive them by faith. Then we serve Him because of the great things he has done for us.

– We can only keep perspective in our Christian lives if we keep focused on what great things He has done for us. And if we lose perspective, everything is distorted. Police in Seal Beach, California, got an urgent call from a resident looking through his new telescope: a pink Corvette was being ravaged in the surf, and the caller was afraid that someone might be trapped inside. Officers rushed to the scene, but couldn’t find the car. The man confirmed he could still see it, so officers came to his house to take a look. Through his telescope, they saw it too: a “Barbie-sized” toy car on the beach, highly magnified by the powerful lens. “Had he panned his telescope up a little from the ocean . . . he would’ve realized what he was looking at,” said police Sgt. Rick Ransdell. The cops recovered the toy, which was less than a foot long, he said. Many people tend to magnify their problems and lose sight of what great things He has done for you.

A Relationship to Obey

James reminds us that “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). By faith Noah set to work building a mammoth ark. He gathered “seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of the earth” (Genesis 7:2,3). If the flood was universal then the task of gathering animals from all parts of the globe is mind-boggling, not to mention feeding and cleaning up after them! One ancient writer solved this problem by asserting that they all hibernate so they only needed feeding once! If the flood was local then the task was not as great but was still immense. Neither was Noah overwhelmed with the responsibility thrust upon him. He took that in his stride of faith too. And he was clearly not at all deterred by the apparent incongruity of what he was doing. In other words, his faith worked!

Two by two they went into the ark to Noah: God never has a problem getting the animals to do what He
wants. Only man is more stupid than the animals. The ox knows its owner and the donkey its
master’s crib; but Israel does not know, My people do not consider. (Isaiah
1:3)

Most times the readiness to obey is cancelled out by not having faith, that’s what it is. We get scared, we move by feelings instead of the Spirit more than we should. To have the release of a blessing we must learn to walk in obedience. Remember, consider the great things that He has done for you.

be ready stay

Value of Wisdom

“Wisdom is man’s true strength; and, under its guidance, he best accomplishes the ends of his being. Wisely handling the matter of life, gives to man the richest enjoyment, and presents the noblest occupation for his powers; hence by it he finds good in the fullest sense. Without wisdom, man is as the wild donkey, running hither and thither, wasting strength which might be profitably employed. Wisdom is the compass by which man is to steer across the trackless waste of life; without it he is a derelict vessel, the sport of winds and waves. A man must be prudent in such a world as this, or he will find no good, but he betrayed into unnumbered ills.” – Charles Spurgeon

“People can gain knowledge and still not know what to do with it. Look at all the knowledge that the evolutionary scientists have today, they are so bent on proving their theories that they can not even see God.”

– First off, wisdom and knowledge are the not same. The above paragraph explains it best. Street smarts will get you no where closer to God than by seeking for wisdom.

1. What does the Word of God say about wisdom?

Proverbs 1:1-7

The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.

BEGINNING OF WISDOM

Psalm 110:10

” The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who do His commandments.”

We must fear Him, not in a sense of staying away from His presence. By obedience, we gain wisdom, by gaining wisdom we are seeking Him , and through seeking Him, He is fulfilling our desires, because we are doing His commandments, therefore scriptures say ” He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him…” – Psalm 145:19

Let’s look at Solomon, who could have asked for anything such as money, fame, power, etc. But one thing that Solomon acquired of the Lord was wisdom, Solomon was to be the wisest one that have ever lived

 

 Proverbs 4:1-8

A Father’s Wise Instruction

” Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, 2 for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching. 3 When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, 4 he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live. 5 Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. 6 Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. 7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. 8 Prize her highly, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her.

Let’s break this down:

Verse 1: “hear” meaning acknowledge what I am about to tell you.
Verse 2: He is giving a warning for those who do not listen to his commandment.
Verse 3: At an early age, he was being taught one of the most important attribute of a Believer.
Verse 4:  Saying “Man cannot live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the Word of God.” -Matt. 4:4.
Verse 5: If we do not live on the only source from which we can only survive, we cannot make it, we will fail in every battle, every temptation that the enemy uses to try to drag us in the hole in which we were saved from; all because of not having wisdom, forgetting where we had been delivered from.
Verse 6: Living as a Christian but not having wisdom? Impossible, we are new creatures in Christ, old things are passed away, behold the new has come. Giving excuse to sin for not obeying God’s command’s is unacceptable in His eyes, He has given us all a conscience, but we can sear that conscience with the foolishness decisions that we could have avoided if only we had wisdom of understanding.
Verse 7: “Get” – a desire for wisdom is wise. Just like Christianity, it is not adopted, it is a way of life.
Verse 8: The blessings that will come forth when we use wisdom in everything we do are unsurpassable when we understand the full potential of wisdom.

” For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  to gain, ” He must become greater, I must become less.” When Simon Peter chose to follow Christ, that was a wise decision in itself, by letting go of the possessions that we hold so close to, but yet can become a distraction when He passes by and invites us to enter into the holies of holies. Will you gain? or stay the same? I choose to step out and follow after Him. Can we think of what all the disciples had seen, heard and experienced as they went about with Him. ” Now there are also many other things that Jesus did… the World itself could not contain the books that would be written.” – John 21:25

3. Why is wisdom important in a believer’s life?

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” – James 1:5

Your a believer, you have everything you need. You don’t know where to start at. Your finances are in a wreck, you need wisdom. Your marriage is on rocky shores, you need wisdom. Your losing self-control, you need wisdom. Like everything we do, we believe by faith.

“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” – James 1:6

 If we aren’t growing in our faith by learning more about God, there’s only stagnation and decline. Without a desire to grow closer to God, there is no desire to gain wisdom. Therefore, wisdom is essential to achieve. Without wisdom, we are nothing but fools who despise His instructions.

“…If you look for it as for silver and search for it as hidden treasure.” – Proverbs 2:4

– Are we searching for wisdom? Or are we expecting it? Jonah, a prophet of God, fled from wisdom. A great rage of fear came over Jonah as he was in the boat. I’ve learned that if we do not seek for wisdom, there will be at times where God is inviting us, reminding us to seek, to ask for the wisdom of His heart. The fear of the situation will come before us. We can submit to God, or the fear will push us in the opposite direction of His plan.

 Scripture tells us to be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves.