Trusting and Obeying God’s Word

 

Exodus 23:20-22(NLT)

“20 See, I am sending an angel before you to protect you on your journey and lead you safely to the place I have prepared for you. 21 Pay close attention to him, and obey his instructions. Do not rebel against him, for he is my representative, and he will not forgive your rebellion. 22 But if you are careful to obey him, following all my instructions, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will oppose those who oppose you.”

 “Sometimes I just want to give up!  Nothing in my life is easy - every time I turn around, there’s always a hurdle to jump through.”

God has a plan for our individual lives. All of us come with unique differences, skills, abilities, and qualities. They were all divinely designed by our Creator. In Ephesians 2:10(NLT), God tells us through the Apostle Paul, “For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” We should never underestimate how extremely important this truth in Ephesians 2:10 is to our individual lives. It is the place that gives us a beginning point to start our race.

Most of us are not born with Ephesians 2:10 preprogrammed in our heads. But somewhere along on this Christian journey, we must learn it. Once this important truth is digested, we must renew our minds to it. This means that we must make a shift. To renew the mind is to make it like new. Before we made Jesus Christ the Lord of our lives, we had an old life with old thoughts and old attitudes. Jesus Christ gave us a new life! 2Corinthians 5:17(NLT) says, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” As a new person belonging to Jesus Christ, we have a new way of living, loving, and giving. So we have to replace our old attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors with God’s way through Jesus Christ, because this is a part of His plan for our lives.

 Problems arise when we don’t learn about God’s way of living through Christ, and we just continue on as we always have. This is where the struggles of life take root. Some call it troubles, tribulations, or trials. Others might call it spiritual warfare. It doesn’t matter all that much what you and I call it. What matters is that we can build our lives on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ and learn to live the more than abundant life that Jesus Christ made available to everyone.

 “Sometimes I just want to give up!  Nothing in my life is easy, and there’s always a hurdle to jump through.” Can you sense the struggle in this statement? Many people are living a reality of struggle every day, but if struggle is all there is, why did Jesus Christ go through all that suffering on the cross when he gave his life for our sins? He didn’t sacrifice his life so that all we can hope for is continuous struggle. Yes, life comes with challenges, but Romans 8:37(NLT) declares, “No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.” God set up our journey to be victorious and triumphant, not downtrodden and powerless.

 As we look at the devastating choices we’ve made, the tough times we’ve endured, and the mistakes we made in life, some of us will try to place some of the blame on God. We won’t face the reality that our minds needed to be renewed and we didn’t renew them or that we didn’t walk in God’s purpose, but instead, we did things our own way. God doesn’t hold our shortcomings against us, because all of us—every human being that has ever lived has them. Our Heavenly Father expects that we will seek forgiveness for the things we’ve done out of poor programming, and then He expects us to get with HIS program.

James 1:5(NLT) says, “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.” Instead of making decisions and choices on our own, God expects us to ask Him for His wisdom and counsel about what we should do. In Deuteronomy 23:22(NLT), God told His people, the children of Israel, “22 But if you are careful to obey him, following all my instructions, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will oppose those who oppose you.” Through God’s people living in Old Testament times, He has taught us lessons too many to count about His provision, protection, and power. Through these lessons, we can see God’s faithfulness and His desire for a family that loves Him through their obedience to His Word.

 People living during Old Testament times saw God’s power demonstrated in mighty ways. He performed many miracles for them, yet, these miracles did not cause them to trust Him as completely as they should have. This is such a lesson for those of us today. Witnessing God’s miracles do not necessarily cause our minds and hearts to change. We must want to change! We must desire to make the decision to change our minds and hearts by trusting and obeying the Words that God has spoken. When we pay close attention to God and make His Word a constant in our lives, we will be transformed by His love and light, and walking with Him every day will be our greatest joy. ■

 Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

 “Trusting and Obeying God’s Word”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2021. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.