Word Study For Today: The Gospel According to Luke Chapter 24
Devotion: HEAR HIM, OBEY HIM.
Text: I Samuel 28:3-19. | I Samuel 30:7-19; II Samuel 2:1-2. | Romans 8:12-17.
Disobedience to God is costly. If disobeying God stops at just merely not doing what He has said, and suffering its first hand consequence of loosing the immediate attending benefit of the instruction or command, then it could suffice in that moment. Disobedience however is deep, [in that ] it eats much deeper than anything else to be treated lightly or casually.
As Prophet Samuel had rightly hinted, obedience is more pleasing to God than any sacrifice you may want to wake up to reality and begin to offer. In >1 Samuel 15:22 (NLT) he says ==> Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.”
The Lord regards highly those who do not trivialise His word/instruction/command/law. Giving heed to God is very paramount to Him. Cultivating the habit of disobedience impairs on your ability or continuity in hearing God. Saul is yet again a perfect example. After his major set back as a result of disobeying God’s instruction, not only was he rejected by God [though he was still king], his ability to hear from was God stalled. >I Samuel 28:6 (NKJV)==>“And when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by the prophets.”
God refused to talk to Saul. A disobedient child is rejected by God. Saul then resorted to consulting the mediums that he himself had banished in the land [in the days when His ears were on the chest of God, hearing Him with clarity]. Why should anyone start out in God and end up with mediums? Disobedience is the pathway to such evil. God takes delight in speaking to His own, and not to “stiff necked” people. >“But they did not obey nor incline their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear nor receive instruction.”[Jeremiah 17:23 NKJV].
Romans 8:14 (NKJV)==>“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”
I perceive God abhors those who trivialise the significance of His leading. Little wonder it is said in Psalm 95:7b,8(NKJV)==> “…Today, if you will hear His voice: 8)“Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As in the day of trial in the wilderness,
Harden not your heart to God’s voice. Continuous disobedience will dull your hearing of Him. >“of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.”[Hebrews 5:11 NKJV]. When you have no spontaneity to God’s instruction, you gradually sign up for dullness in your ability to hear Him. Maturity in Him(obeying Him and developing thereby), is a product of having developed your ability to distinguish His voice by reason of constant use(obedience). >Hebrews 5:14 (NIV)==>“But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
David was a man after God’s heart. He was always in tune [with God], hearing Him always; because He was a doer He heard God more.
>I Samuel 30:7-10; 17-19 NKJV)==> 7)“Then David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son, “Please bring the ephod here to me.” And Abiathar brought the ephod to David. 8)So David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?” And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all. ” 9)So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him, and came to the Brook Besor, where those stayed who were left behind. 10)But David pursued, he and four hundred men; for two hundred stayed behind, who were so weary that they could not cross the Brook Besor.”
17)“Then David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who rode on camels and fled. 18)So David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away, and David rescued his two wives. 19)And nothing of theirs was lacking, either small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything which they had taken from them; David recovered all.”
>II Samuel 2:1-2 (NKJV)==>1)“It happened after this that David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I go up to any of the cities of Judah?” And the LORD said to him, “Go up.” David said, “Where shall I go up?” And He said, “To Hebron.” 2)So David went up there, and his two wives also, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite.”
Beloved >“Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.”[Ecclesiastes 5:1 NKJV].
>James 1:22-25 (NKJV)==>“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”
Anyone who keeps hearing and obeying God is blessed in that he will yet hear the more. The more you obey, the better you hear, and the better you hear, the more blessed your life becomes. You will be living in the will of God when you constantly obey His instructions; you become a palpably blessed man.
Be warned >19)“If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land; 20)But if you refuse and rebel, You shall be devoured by the sword”; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” [Isaiah 1:19-20 NKJV]
Prayer Action:
-Worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness.
-Speak in the language of Holiness for 15 minutes.
-Pray against dull hearing[ask for grace to sharpen your hearing by reason of constant obedience]
-Ask the Lord to give you the grace of Jesus Christ to hear God and heed[““I can’t do a solitary thing on my own: I listen, then I decide. You can trust my decision because I’m not out to get my own way but only to carry out orders.>John 5:30 MSG]. Receive grace for obedience.
