What does obedience look like · Modern Christian Warrior

What does obedience look like

World perception:

If you are in a store, or a bank and someone comes in to rob the place using a gun, The moment they say to put your hands up in the air, unless you're feeling very very very brave, your hands immediately go up in the air and an act of surrender. You obedience was that you followed the command of putting your hands in the air immediately without second thought. You had a true fear that if you did not put your hands up consequences would be more than likely manifesting in the realm of physical harm. So beatings in a worldly perception is that in this scenario, your hands immediately go up in the air as an act of surrender.

Biblical perspective:

If there's a specific verse that tells you to do something, or instructs you NOT to do something, you are supposed to immediately act upon it. That will look like anything from: writing the verse down, doing a complete word study on the aspect of scripture that God has placed on your heart, doing a theme study in line with what God has placed on your heart, or any of those aspects of digging into the word so that you know fully what God is trying to get across to you.

Years ago I asked God what he wanted me to do when I recommitted my life completely and fully to following him instead of being half into the world and half into being a Christian. He placed on my heart Matthew 6:33. Now here's the thing that took place, I opened my Bible read the verse, said to myself okay I understand. At that point put the Bible away and I went about my day. But God knew that I didn't fully understand the message He was trying to convey, because they're very next day one of the Christian brothers in a Bible study that I attended mentioned Matthew 6:33 and Holy Spirit plucked my heartstring as a way to get my attention for me to go study that verse. What I actually did though in that second time of looking up the verse is that I looked up the verse I looked up two words in the verse and thought that that was sufficient. However, God saw it in a different perspective. So being that I still did not get the message that God was trying to get on to my heart, the next Sunday that I went to church the entire message was about Matthew 6:33.

So having realized that I did not do my due diligence, I went back and I opened the Bible, I got a worldly dictionary, I got a biblical dictionary, I got us thesaurus, I got a Bible commentary, and I looked every word up in that verse, I looked up the grammatical punctuation such as what does a comma mean, what is a semicolon mean, what is a colon mean and every other grammatical punctuation that was in that verse. And I dug into the Bible to understand what Matthew 6:33 was talking about.

My obedience did not manifest in a physical sense until I sat down and acted as if Matthew 6:33 was the only thing I was ever supposed to read for the rest of my life. It was my water, it was my air, it was my everything. What he showed me in that verse redefined how I was supposed to live my life as a Christian. I will try to give the best breakdown that I can and convey what was revealed to me about Matthew 6:33 and how it should look in a behavioral obedience sense for any man or woman of Christ.

1. Seek ye first the kingdom;

First and foremost in order to be a man or woman of God we have to have come to God either for the first time asking forgiveness and accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And having done so, to keep your eyes directly focused for the purposes of living out kingdom principles illustrated through the Bible both in the Old testament and in the New testament.

2. And his righteousness

When I was studying out this aspect of the verse the Holy Spirit placed on my heart 2 Peter 1:5-7. It talks about adding to our face, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love. And there are other aspects of scripture that point to not only the same thing listed here in this scripture, but there are other principles and values that when you study it out the Holy Spirit will lead you to find for yourself individually. But the point is is that we are to seek out these principles of his righteousness. And we can do that because it tells us in Scripture that we are righteous in God's eyes when we have placed our faith in the finished work of the cross. It's not anything that we have done specifically, we could never earn righteousness on any level. God's righteousness is imputed onto us the moment we believed in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. But we do not always seek out the aspect of living out our faith behaviorally. And that takes a process of sanctification. Scripture specifically says that we are to work OUT our salvation with fear and trembling. So that shows you right there that this faith walk is a process.

The first part of Matthew 6:33 says specifically, SEEK

When I was studying out the first God placed on my heart on mental image of a heat-seeking missile. There are only two aspects that a heat-seeking missile will stop moving.

1. It has run out of gas or fuel

2. It has met its destination

When scripture tells us to seek ye first the kingdom of God; and his righteousness, the word seek in this verse is a continuous lifelong journey following the two aspects that I just listed above in terms of what will cause a heat-seeking missile to stop moving. The first one being that it is run out of fuel, in our sense as a human being the only way for us to run out of fuel is if we die. So that shows you right there that it is a lifelong process of seeking out the kingdom of God, working out your salvation to seek out his righteousness. And the second part is where you have met your destination, we will never reach our destination while we are alive. Because of destination that we are going to is heaven.

So obedience looks specifically like a reverential continuous aspect as if not following God's word will immediately bring consequences. And that is not to cause you in any way shape form or fashion to act out of fear because of consequences. We are to be obedient out of a reverential love towards God because of everything he has done for us through Jesus. Our love towards God should fuel us to ever strive towards seeking out his will, and seeking out to live in accordance with scripture so that our day-to-day lives reflect God and principles and values.

While that is not always easy to do I assure you that if God has placed it on your heart to do it, he has already extended to you His grace for you to follow through. If you know that the Holy Spirit is leading you in a direction, know foundationally that God has already given you the grace needed in order to go through the process of what he's asking you to do so that you are successful and that his grace will see you through to its completion.

Many times we get in God's way when we think that doing something is needed when God didn't even ask us to do so. Biblically speaking in the Old testament when God told King Saul to destroy all of the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15:3, King Saul instead did not destroy all of them, he saved some of the animals for the purposes of ritual sacrifice and allowed the king of the amalekites to live. That was not obedience, that was self-will on King Saul's part when he chose instead to make sacrifices thinking that doing so was going to please God when in fact that was not what God had intended nor instructed him to do.

Obedience today is no different than what God wanted King Saul to do. When God gave him the instruction to do something, God expected King Saul to do it to the letter. Today if God places on your heart to do something, God today expects you to act in accordance with his command either through the word or through the Holy spirit's prompting to the letter. And today is Christians we follow the Word of God and everything illustrated in the Bible as godly through a reverential fear. When scripture is talking about doing something in a reverential fear towards God, it is speaking about doing so with an awe-inspiring love that we have towards God for all that he did for us.

Obedience is not always an easy behavioral part of our lives as Christians. But I assure you that if God is placed it on your heart to do something behaviorally, we are supposed to do what immediately and continue doing it until that task is completed.

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