These passed weeks have been intense. Busy, utterly blessed and intense. I’m slowly catching up and getting back to my routine and consistency. I’m getting there. And as I get there — I climb out of the struggle and two-step my way on the victory platform, posting my own two pieces a week — I feel this devotional I did today is a perfect one to share. It’s day 6 of a plan I”m doing called: Walls Fall Down: God’s Unusual Plan For Victory. Hope you enjoy it and I hope it touches your view on obedience too.
Obedience has been called “the lifelong lesson” because it takes many of us our entire lives to master this one virtue. The other day, a friend of mine told me how she had asked her five-year-old son to wash his hands. She asks him to do this several times a day, reminding him to scrub with soap and water and to dry his hands completely. Her son went into the bathroom, and in a flash he was back out. Noticing his hands were still wet, my friend told her son to go back to the bathroom and dry them. Not knowing his mother was watching him, the lad walked into the bathroom, put his hands up to the wall without actually touching the towel, and walk out once again. My friend was shocked by the clever disobedience of her child. He went through the motions, but he didn’t really obey what she had asked him to do.
In actuality, this is not at all surprising. All of us, from the time we were very young, have been inclined to disobey the countless rules we encounter on a daily basis. But God is looking for people who will obey Him, and He promises blessings for faithful obedience (Deuteronomy 28:1-14).
God said to Joshua and the Israelites, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in” (Joshua 6:2-5).
It was pretty simple: If God’s people obeyed His instructions—no matter how strange or simple those instructions might have seemed—they would conquer their enemies. Then they would receive the blessing of inheriting the Promised Land. God doesn’t always give us a detailed explanation of why He’s asking us to do something. He simply expects us to trust His wisdom and obey His commands. Whenever God leads you and wherever God leads you, just obey Him. And watch as He ushers you into your own Promised Land.
Joshua 6:15-19 [HCSB] — “Early on the seventh day, they started at dawn and marched around the city seven times in the same way. That was the only day they marched around the city seven times. After the seventh time, the priests blew the trumpets, and Joshua said to the people, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city. But the city and everything in it are set apart to the Lord for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and everyone with her in the house will live, because she hid the men we sent. But keep yourselves from the things set apart, or you will be set apart for destruction. If you take any of those things, you will set apart the camp of Israel for destruction and bring disaster on it. For all the silver and gold, and the articles of bronze and iron, are dedicated to the Lord and must go into the Lord’s treasury.””
Deuteronomy 28:1-14 [HCSB] — ““Now if you faithfully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all His commands I am giving you today, the Lord your God will put you far above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come and overtake you, because you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. Your descendants will be blessed, and your land’s produce, and the offspring of your livestock, including the young of your herds and the newborn of your flocks. Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. “The Lord will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you from one direction but flee from you in seven directions. The Lord will grant you a blessing on your storehouses and on everything you do; He will bless you in the land the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as His holy people, as He swore to you, if you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by Yahweh’s name, and they will stand in awe of you. The Lord will make you prosper abundantly with children, the offspring of your livestock, and your land’s produce in the land the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open for you His abundant storehouse, the sky, to give your land rain in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward if you listen to the Lord your God’s commands I am giving you today and are careful to follow them. Do not turn aside to the right or the left from all the things I am commanding you today, and do not go after other gods to worship them.”
John 14:23 [HCSB] — “Jesus answered, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”
Tashmness. 