“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams.” – 1 Samuel 15:22
I’ve realized since being here in Guatemala that I’ve never actually taken the time to read the Bible all the way through, front to back and actually study it. I know so many of the stories but I’ve never actually read all the little details and tried to understand it in deeper ways before. Honestly I’ve always struggled with consistently reading the Bible (especially the Old Testament) and actually getting something out of it but I decided to use my time on the race to work on that. The Lord has been so so good and patient to work with me in this area. He’s blessed me with new eyes and a new fire and passion for digging into His Word. More than that he’s also been so good to teach and reveal more than I ever thought through His Word! With all that said that brings me to the main focus of this blog which is complete obedience.
There’s a lot of things the Lords been teaching and revealing to me in deeper ways but obedience is one He’s really put on my heart recently. One theme that has been so consistent all through out the Old Testament is obedience, not just obedience but complete obedience (there’s a difference). Honestly if you dig deep and look closely obedience is really the only thing the Lord ever asks of us.
You can see it all the way back at the beginning in the garden of Eden; sin was brought into the world because of Adam’s disobedience to God when he ate the fruit. Disobedience is the very thing that brought sin into the world so how beautiful is it that obedience is the very thing the Lord asks of us! Going past that when God told Noah to build the ark He was really calling him to be obedient. The Lord asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Issac and because of Abrahams faith and obedience to the Lord Isaac was spared and blessings were brought on them. There’s so many more times in the Bible where all God was asking was the obedience of his people, but the group that’s taught me the most is the Israelites.
Ever since the Israelites left Egypt and began their journey to the promised land they had many ups but especially downs. Over and over again they complained, they turned away from God, but more than that they lacked obedience. Instead of trusting and following the God who literally saved them out of Egypt they were disobedient and turned to other gods. God gave them so many opportunities to follow him and to be obedient but they turned away again and again. Even after the Israelites had gotten into the promised land they were still called to complete obedience. As Joshua led them in battle after battle to take over the promised land God told them how to do it in specific detail. He even divided the land in such a specific way for each tribe to have what they needed. He gave them opportunity after opportunity to walk in obedience, the problem is most the time they only walked in partial obedience.
Partial obedience really isn’t obedience at all, it’s honestly just disobedience. I think this is where a lot of people get stuck including me. We hear what God says to do and we follow it to some extent but when it becomes really costly to obey a lot of the time we don’t. There are so many examples of this in the Old Testament. The Israelites would follow the law and the voice of the Lord when it benefited them but then they’d twist it up a little bit when it didn’t benefit them. One example of this is when they conquered the promised land. The Lord had made it clear that he was using the Israelites to execute his judgement on the inhabitants. This sounds super harsh but it was all people that were serving other gods and living in sin. God had made it very clear that when the Israelites conquered the land they were to destroy all the inhabitants and get rid of any idols. The main reason for this was actually to protect the Israelites from being tempted and distracted by false idols and falling into idolatry. The Israelites started off strong fighting and obeying but eventually they settled into what was easy and they began to let people live alongside them and not completely conquer the land. Eventually this does come back to bite them and Israel is led astray by the false gods of surrounding people and nations.
Complete obedience is incredibly hard to walk and honestly it does cost us but it’s so worth it. This is something the Lords really been teaching me recently, not just walking in obedience but walking in complete obedience to all that he says and calls me to. Not just walking in the parts that I want to but actually obeying every word he says. It might be easier to walk in partial obedience but it’s so much more worth it to walk in complete obedience. Learning to have a heart of obedience and a heart that’s willing to obey whatever He asks. Another thing that I’ve really learned recently is that obeying and loving the Lord go hand in hand. If you love the Lord then you’ll obey Him and if you obey the Lord then you’re loving Him. You can’t have one without the other, so if you’re saying you love the Lord then you should also be walking in obedience.
I know this blog was a little different than my other ones but I wanted to share what the Lords really been teaching me and working on my heart. Thanks for taking the time to read and hear my heart it means the world! Check out some photos from the last few weeks!
Love,
Emilee
