Knowing vs. Obeying
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”
John 14:23 (NKJV)
Do you know what brings weight and substance to your faith?
Obedience. We see in the life of David that what brought him victory was not just the fact that he prayed, but the fact that he obeyed.
I'll confess that I have, in my life, done a whole lot of praying and then finished my prayers and gone and done exactly what I wanted to do. David, on the other hand, not only prayed; he obeyed.
We’ve got to trust the value of being obedient. In whatever way God decides He wants to work, and no matter how I pray, what makes the difference is not only our trust, but our courage to obey.
- Don't give God passionate praise and then feeble obedience.
- Don't live your life being a heavy worshiper, but then acting in disobedience.
- Don't give God aggressive service and then be sloppy in following His instruction.
- Don’t offer God desperate prayers followed by casual obedience.
If you ask God to make a way, then do what He says. I agree with Eugene Peterson when he says “Obedience is the thing—living in active response to the living God. The most important question we ask of [a Bible] text is not, ‘What does this mean?’ but ‘What can I obey?’”
More than 90 people conducted an all-night search for an eight-year-old boy named Dominic, who, while on a skiing trip with his father, had skied off the run without realizing it. They hoped to find Dominic somewhere on the snowy mountain slope before it was too late, but as each hour passed, the search party and the boy's family became more and more concerned.
At dawn, they sent out helicopters to search from above. The helicopters spotted some faint ski tracks which changed to small footprints, which led to a tree where they found little Dominic. To everyone’s astonishment, the boy was in such good shape, he didn't even need to be admitted to the hospital to be checked out.
How did Dominic fare so well despite spending an entire night in the freezing elements? His father had had enough forethought to warn the boy what to do if he ever found himself lost: find a tree, snuggle up to it, and cover yourself with branches.
As a young child, Dominic never would have thought of doing this on his own. But his father told him what to do. Even though he had this lesson as part of his intellectual acumen, Dominic wasn't saved by his knowing; he was saved by his obeying.
The same is true for you and me.
Discernment
And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
Ephesians 5:10 (ESV)
There are two sides of faith.
The first side says that you should get up every day and do the best you can. Use your creative imagination. Trust that your steps have been ordered. Test God's promises. Exercise your gifts. Trust that you are authorized, that wherever your feet tread is going to become holy ground. Don't you ever wake up and doubt your anointing. Make it happen. Make it work. Knock on the doors. Take the mountain. Give it your best shot because God is pushing you. God has promised to bless it. He'll arrange and position things when you offer Him your best.
But at other times, God wants you to wait. Wait for the sound of His presence. Yes, you are skilled, gifted, and anointed—but you’ve got to sit still before the Lord.
When God flanks you, you go ahead and make the attempts. Push your way through, make a decision and follow your ordered steps. Walk by faith and resist walking by sight. That's one side of trust in God.
The other side is when God fronts you. There are times when you can't rely on your skill, know-how, ability, or intellect. Your human connections don’t matter. Nor does it matter that you busted that door down the last time. It doesn't matter that you had the talent to walk in that certain sphere. This time He is calling you to sit still and let Him make a way.
You have to know the difference, and we call that discernment.
You must learn to distinguish between whether God is expecting you to wait while He arranges things, or if you are to arrange things while He's pushing you from behind.
I've been injured in some battles that should have been easy to defeat—emotionally, relationally, and professionally. But my problem was I was charging forward when I should have been listening for the sound of God’s signal. At other times, I have been hesitant to move, slow to make a decision, because I was waiting on God to front the preparation—yet God was waiting on me to make a move.
I don't want to make these mistakes anymore, and I know you don't either. So understand that sometimes God flanks and sometimes God fronts, and it is your prayers that will reveal which way to use your faith in each instance. To know the difference, pray without assumptions and assertions, and listen to what He is telling you.
Listen for the Sound
Then the Philistines went up once again and deployed themselves in the Valley of Rephaim. Therefore David inquired of the Lord, and He said, “You shall not go up; circle around behind them, and come upon them in front of the mulberry trees. And it shall be, when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you shall advance quickly. For then the Lord will go out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines.”
2 Samuel 5:22-24 (NKJV)
David and his men have already defeated the Philistine army in direct combat once. And now, for a second time, the Philistines are coming against him. But David doesn’t just assume that it will all play out the same way as before. Instead, David inquires of the Lord about what he should do. He doesn’t want to move until God grants him permission to do so. David is so spiritually connected that he seeks to be meticulously obedient.
It's apparent to me that David has no problem demonstrating what has been referred to as adaptive leadership. He advanced one way before, but he’s going to trust God to do it differently this time. It’s the same valley of battle. It's the same enemy that they previously defeated. David is flanked by the same strong army of soldiers. But this time he is instructed by the Lord to wait on a different confirmation, move along a different path, and engage the battle with a different strategy.
God tells David, “Don't advance directly toward the Philistines. This time, circle around them; position your army right in front of some mulberry trees. And when you get there, wait for My signal to you. This is the signal: when you hear the sound of marching in the mulberry trees, it'll be your time to advance. The fight is going to be easier for you and the victory will be secured, but you must be led by the sound. Be sensitive to the sound. Listen out for the sound, and then pitch your obedience to it. Hold your energy and restrain your passion until you hear the sound.
What separates victory from defeat for David has nothing to do with strength and everything to do with obedience to the details.
This text is asking the question of all of us today: Can you ignore your reflexes, your momentum, your emotional default responses, your instinctual proclivities, your prior victories, the pain of your past mistakes, the memories of your regretful defeats—can you ignore all of these so that you can make sure you are ready to listen for the sound of God's presence and intent in your life?
God is not necessarily going to give you victory in the same ways that He has done so in the past. Your past experiences do not dictate your present course of action. Don’t take for granted the fact that God works in different ways at different times.
Instead, listen for the Lord’s instruction and follow the sound of His leading.
Thirsty?
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.”
John 7:37 (NKJV)
When we are spiritually thirsty, God wants us to ask Him for living water. God wants to show us that He can supply our every need. Here's what God does when we come to Him asking Him to quench our spiritual thirst. He reaches down with His omnipotent hand over the balcony of eternity and He smites the dry place and splits the rock, making a fountain gush forth.
Yes, God can turn a dry place into an ever-flowing spring.
That's why you don't have to be so thirsty in life: because the God you serve can take what seems to be a dry place, a hollow experience, or an arid season in your life, and from it, He can let you drink until you can't stand anymore.
Jesus promised, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” He also said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” The Psalmist sang, “He satisfies the thirsty soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness.”
You can't stop life from dehydrating you, from disappointing you, from draining you, especially if you're trying to walk by faith and not by sight. But what will you do with that thirst? How will you try to quench it?
I agree with Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who said, “The most vital question to ask about all who claim to be Christian is this: Have they a soul thirsty for God? ... Is their life centered on Him? Do they press forward more and more that they might know Him?”
You serve a God who can slake your thirst. Make the content of your prayer today a request for spiritual water. Ask Jesus for access to drink from the spring that is forever flowing and never runs dry. Bring your dehydrated life to His fountain, and He'll give you exactly what you need. And every time your life feels empty, God can take His pitcher and fill it from the ever-flowing water of His Spirit and pour it upon your life.
Touched by Jesus
When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born.
Matthew 1:24-25 (NLT)
The Bible says that Joseph did not “know” Mary until she brought forth her firstborn son. That means they had no intimate connections spanning the time from conception until after it was safe for her post-delivery. Joseph wouldn’t touch Mary until God finished delivering Jesus through her.
And during that time, Joseph accepted his role as a protecting husband, denying his natural passion, restraining his intense love for his new bride, and living in service to God through a season of self-denial.
Joseph understood this line of reasoning: I won’t touch Mary now because God has touched her life in a way that I cannot compete with. But if I play my part, not touching her in this span of time, it will position me to be touched by Jesus when Jesus fulfills the Father’s will for His earthly experience.
And Jesus most certainly touched Joseph’s life. He touched his life with shed blood able to wash away human sin. He touched Joseph’s life with a sinless sacrifice that eliminated forever the need for rams and bulls and sheep. He touched Joseph’s life with a guarantee of a room not made by hands, eternal, up in the heavens. He touched Joseph’s life with the gift of the Spirit to bring back to his remembrance everything Jesus had said.
Joseph may have welcomed Jesus into the human sphere, but Jesus would one day welcome Joseph into the heavenly city. Joseph greeted Jesus when He emerged from the womb, but Jesus welcomed Joseph when he emerged from the tomb.
So let me tell you why we can wait on the Lord and spend long seasons of life in self-denial: Because if we can carry our cross and deny ourselves, then one of these days, the Jesus that asked us to deny ourselves is the same Jesus that will reward us in abundance.
You will not regret practicing patience and exercising the denial of your own wishes and desires in place of God’s perfect will. When you give way to His plan for your life, no matter the sacrifice, the outcome will be so much greater.
