My child, there will always be times when you fall short. There will also be times when you are less than perfect. No human is perfect. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Repent and confess and get on with following Me. Do not let the enemy continue to condemn what I have already forgiven. I know every one of your deeds before you do them. I know every word before you speak it. I have come to set you free from the power of sin. I have already paid the penalty for your sins. Quit beating yourself up over sin. Repent and confess and continue on the path I have before you. I am not asking for perfection. I desire obedience.
Tag Archives: obedience
Abide In Me
My child, you don’t have to worry or be anxious about what the future holds because I hold the future. I hold you in the palm of My hand. If you remain in Me, then I will place you where I want you. So don’t fret, just learn to abide in Me, believing that My plan is unfolding as you walk in obedience with Me. Believe Me My child. Your future is bright. Make the most of the now. I will take care of the rest.
Abundance
Beloved, you want My blessings, but you don’t want to fully surrender to Me. You want answers, but you don’t want to obey Me. How can I bring you into everything I have for you when you still want your own way? I can only bless you with My blessings when you fully and wholly give Me your entire life. Only then will I release the abundance I have for you.
Truth Will Set You Free
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My child, blessed are you when you believe Me. Your faith pleases Me. People will be drawn to Me by your obedience, faith and belief in Me. Let My light shine through you today. They will know the truth and the truth will set them free.
John 8:32
Thirsty for Faith
Our faith grows and develops as we cling to Him awaiting the final redemption of our body.(Romans 8:23) Faith is both a gift of God and an act of our will. We are to personally exercise faith, but the decision to do so is helped along by His gift of hunger for more of Him. It reminds me of that popular soft drink slogan, “Obey your thirst”—God wants us to step out in the “obedience by faith” to receive what He has made us thirsty for.
The proof of our faith is found in our actions, because people behave only in a manner which conforms to what they really believe. When we take action (the assurance and conviction aspects of faith), it grows. And as our faith grows, hope becomes stronger, in turn fostering greater faith, snowballing to promote growth in both our maturity and effectual use by God.
Obedience of Faith
Not only has God freed us from the power of sin, but He has provided a means by which we can move past these problems. It’s God’s intention to build solid character in us as we submit to Him through “the obedience of faith.” And this takes time. So, don’t be overly disheartened by your sin as it inevitably comes. Rather, let your failures drive you to God so that He can use them to strengthen your resolve to live for Him.
Each time we say no to sin, it makes it a little easier to say no the next time. Think of it as being like a cup of coffee. If you refill your cup with a shot of espresso each time you drink a little, soon the coffee will virtually be all espresso. It just keeps getting stronger and stronger. But if instead you add a bit of water each time you take a sip, the coffee will soon be diluted to the point of practically being all water.
So it is with sin. As we systematically resist sin, we just naturally set ourselves on the road to the victory. But while that’s important, it’s not enough. Because sin is primarily a heart issue, first and foremost is the issue of pursuing intimacy with Jesus as He dwells within us through His Spirit. We must remember that our spirit can draw life from God only when firmly attached to Him.
Obedience through Serving
Our walk with Jesus was never meant to be stagnant. He wants us to be continually moving forward with Him. And moving forward means not sitting idly by waiting for black and white instructions, but rather serving God to the best of our ability with what we know of His will right now.
The Bible is full of very explicit instructions concerning God’s will—not necessarily His unique purpose for us individually, but His bidding for each and every one of us as believers in more general terms. So we need to be about obediently implementing these responsibilities. At its most basic level, serving God means serving others. We know from Scripture that at the very least God wants this. So why not start there?
The Life I’ve Planned
My child, commit your works to Me and your plans will be established. Seek My plan for your life and I will bring it about. Be obedient and diligent to do what I have told you and I will bring about success. Make this the practice of your life and you will enjoy all your days. Faith and obedience. Love and joy. This is the life I have planned for you.
Proverbs 16:3
Victory in Defeat
“What does my sin say about my faith?” Well, though it may be pretty ugly, I wouldn’t beat myself up too badly over it. Of course we fail to believe God perfectly! Jesus remains hidden, and we are but human. And even though Jesus, being our example, never sinned in His humanity, it doesn’t mean that we’ll ever reach such a level of perfection while here on earth. No matter how good we ultimately become as God’s children, we will always experience shortcomings in various areas of our lives.
Still, accepting the reality of our circumstances doesn’t mean that we turn a blind eye to God’s truth. Being naïve to the dynamics of sin as it relates to both faith and obedience, unbelief and disobedience, merely serves to weaken our ability to make right choices. The insightful writer of Hebrews says: “Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day…lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”(Hebrews 3:12-13) Notice here how sin hardens us, in turn fostering further unbelief. Like a snowball—growing in size and gaining momentum—sin and unbelief feed on each other, serving to lead the believer further down the path toward alienation from God.
In order to prevent this from happening, we must guard our heart—even from seemingly insignificant sins. At the very least, disobedience stalls our growth. At worst, it hardens our heart to the point where we simply cease to believe. Allowing unbelief to take root is absolutely foolhardy, for when faith is shattered, God no longer has a basis for relationship with us.
While absolute sinlessness may not be attainable, walking in the holiness of Christ is. This is why we must never surrender to the domination of sin in our life, but rather set our heart to pursue growth in our faith through obedience. Even though we’ll never fully arrive at the perfection of sinlessness this side of eternity, the important thing is to keep moving forward.(Philippians 3:12-14) God loves watching His children work out their faith in this way, and will never fail to shower His blessing on those He finds so doing.(Philippians 2:12-13)
Faith Evidenced by Obedience
To answer this question of the weakness of the flesh, we must look beyond the question of sin to the issue of faith. Faith is the basis for our relationship with God.(John 1:12, Ephesians 2:8) It is simply impossible to come into relationship with God without it.(Hebrews 11:6) Our faith is God’s supreme treasure, and our obedience to Him is the evidence that faith exists within us.
Paul talks about “the obedience of faith.”(Romans 16:26) In Romans 6:16 he tells us: “…when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness.” Therefore, obedience is the litmus test of faith—the proof that faith exists.
In the same way, disobedience clearly reveals the presence of unbelief. In talking about the Israelites’ sin in the wilderness, the writer of Hebrews says: “And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.”(Hebrews 3:18-19) Here sin and unbelief are inextricably linked.
Disobedience—sin—is born of unbelief. So when we sin, we prove that we harbor some level of unbelief in our heart. To test this hypothesis, just imagine how you would behave if Jesus, in all His glory, visibly appeared to you. Would you sin? Of course not! The last thing you would want to do is displease Him in any way. Unbelief would be totally eradicated, and therefore disobedience wouldn’t be an option at all.
Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself