Be willing and obedient | By: J.O. Lawal | Date: July 23, 2023 | Series: From Pastor’s Desk | Number: Vol. 12, No. 12

Beloved: grace, peace and mercy be yours without measure from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am pleased to welcome you to the last week of the month of July 2023. I pray that none of the things God wants you to have in the month will elude you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Now one of the things we are shown in Scriptures is that it is not enough for God to want us to have something or be something. We too must be willing and pressing to be what He wants us to be. And this must be done according to His will. Otherwise, we will not be what He wants us to be.

For example, in the book of Isaiah, God says this to us: “If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land…” (Isa 1:19NIV) What is this showing us? First, it is showing us that God wants us to have and enjoy the best of everything wherever we are. No, we may not be enjoying the best of life where we are at the moment, perhaps because of our family background, level of education, lack of financial intelligence and so forth. But that does not change the fact that the will of God is for us to have and enjoy the best wherever we are.

Second, this Scripture is showing us that even though God wants the best for us, we too have our own roles to play in having and enjoying it. And what are those roles? First, we must be willing to have and enjoy the best that He wants for us. God is not going to force us to have or take anything from Him. We have to be willing to have what He is offering. Otherwise, we are not going to have it.

God, for instance, wanted all the children of Israel that Moses brought out of Egypt to have the land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey. But many of them did not make it into that land. Why? They were not willing to take it. Why were they not willing? Fear! The fear of the giants in the land made them unwilling to have it. But God knew that there were giants there before offering them the land. All He needed from them was a willingness to receive it. And it would be theirs. But because they were not willing to have it, they lost it and perished in the wilderness. Only the willing ones among them made it into the land.

If we too are willing to have what God wants us to have, He will deliver it to us, regardless of how hard getting it may seem. And how do we show that we are willing to have the best God wants us to have in life and be the best He wants us to be? We show it by passionately studying His word to know all that He has provided for our enjoyment. We show it by praying to Him without ceasing to bring to pass all His good plans for us. And we show it by taking whatever righteous steps we have the ability to take to be what He wants us to be and to have what He wants us to have.

Now the second thing we need to have and enjoy the best God wants us to have in life is obedience. God has His own ways of making us have and enjoy His provisions for us. And it is only by following those ways that we can enjoy them. So, even if we are willing to have what God wants us to have and become what He wants us to become, if we do not follow His ways and plans for us with a heart of obedience, we will miss it. And even if we do have what He wants us to have by following our own ways, there will certainly be consequences, consequences that may take away things greater than we have already gotten from us.

For example, there was a time that God wanted to give the children of Israel water to drink from a rock. And He told Moses to speak to the rock right in front of everyone and that the rock would bring forth water for them. But because Moses was seriously angry at the time with the people, he disobeyed God by striking the rock twice with his rod. And surprisingly, water came out of the rock for the people to drink. But God told him that he would not enter the Promised land because of his disobedience. (Cf. Num 20:1-13)

You can see, then, that it is possible for us to be disobeying God and still be experiencing some measure of His goodness and favour in our lives. But as it was in the case of Moses, our disobedience may end up taking away from us the very best of things God wants us to have. Therefore, we must watch ourselves and see to it that just as we are willing to have what God wants for us, we are also obedient to His instructions. My prayer is that the strength to function like this will be greatly at work in us at all times. Amen.

Have a splendid week.

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