Re: Stress,worry,fear etc & the Christian

This morning, I asked the Lord how I could show you just how very important learning all of this is and lo and behold this was today's devotional which I think makes a perfect jumping off point for us:

What next?

Determine to know more than others. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. John 13:17.

If you do not cut the moorings, God will have to break them by a storm and send you out. Launch all on God, go out on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and you will get your eyes open. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the smooth waters just inside the harbour bar, full of delight, but always moored; you have to get out through the harbour bar into the great deeps of God and begin to know for yourself, begin to have spiritual discernment.

When you know you should do a thing, and do it, immediately you know more. Revise where you have become ‘stodgy’ spiritually, and you will find it goes back to a point where there was something you knew you should do, but you did not do it because there seemed no immediate call to, and now you have no perception, no discernment; at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-possessed. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to go on knowing.

The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you work up occasions to sacrifice yourself; ardour is mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfil your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is a great deal better to fulfil the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “To obey is better than sacrifice.” Beware of harking back to what you were once when God wants you to be something you have never been. “If any man will do . . ., he shall know . . . .”

Chambers, O. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (June 8). Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers.

You know, for many who have been born again, there are several words they really don't want to hear about, and not many pastors preach about these things today for that very reason. We've all been taught that salvation is a free gift from God with no strings attached, and so it is. When we hear a pastor or anyone start to preach about being obedient to God, the first thought many of us have is "that's being legalistic and I don't have to pay attention to this". So even those pastors who do dare to preach the whole bible, are often tuned out as soon as they utter that nasty word, "obey".

Obedience isn't about being legalistic however, or at least it need not be. Obedience is only legalistic when you are following a command because you think that by doing so you'll get into heaven and by not doing so, you won't.

For those who are born again though, obedience is a matter of love, of wanting to please our Lord. We obey Him because we recognize all He has done for us, and count it a very small service we can do Him in return because we love Him. Let's see too what Jesus says about obedience:

John 15:1-8 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

John 15:9-14 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.

Let me just say that He is not saying that if we don't obey Him that we will lose our salvation, He is simply saying that if we are abiding in Him we will obey Him. It is only when we are not abiding in Him that we don't obey Him. By abiding in Him I'm referring to being in constant communion with Him; living for Him rather then ourselves; to cleave, cling, remain with Him all the time, not just on Sundays and not just when we open our bibles. I have to laugh because I checked the dictionary definition of the word and one of the synonyms was "to hang out with". While that's kind of funny on the one hand, it's also a very accurate description of what abiding in Him means for us.

So as long as we're "hanging out with" Jesus, our joy will be complete and we will be obedient, not because we "have to" but because we want to. It's only when we are separated from Him, when we've pushed Him off into some corner of our mind where we can ignore Him (or try to anyway) that obedience becomes a dirty word.

What I'd like to discuss for a bit is how and why our obedience is so important and just what God expects from us once we're saved as well as what He expects from us once He has given us the knowledge we need to do His Will in something, like overcoming these negative thoughts and feelings. I think you can see without too much effort how by being obedient and abiding in Him we can't fail to make use of the tools He has given us to overcome these negative thoughts and feelings. The reason I say that is because the more we make use of those tools He's given us, the more we will be abiding in Him, and the more we abide in Him, the more we will automatically make use of these tools.

We'll talk some more about this tomorrow. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have though, either on this or on any part of this study. If you're having trouble with something, please let me know so that I can try and help you ok?

Read the whole study here

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