Trust and Obey- FRIDAY
Trust and Obey
by
Bryan Craig
FRIDAY- The Greatest Command
On Monday, I told you that one of my favorite verses was Psalm 37:4,
"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." I thought, What a great, loving Lord I have, that He loves me so much, He wants to give me all my desires! Forgive me, Lord. I now see the arrogance of that thought. I had it all wrong. That was all about me, seeking what He could do for me.
The opening line in The Purpose-Driven Life is: God has a purpose for your life, and it's not about you. I'm finally starting to get it. God does love me a lot, but He wants that love to flow through me.
"Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." John 7:38 NIV
Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost For His Highest, says the following about the verse above:
Our Lord's teaching is always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a man; His purpose is to make a man exactly like Himself, and the characteristic of the Son of God is self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain, but what He pours through us that counts. It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all.
Yes, the Lord asks us to trust Him and sometimes take crazy steps of obedience, because He wants to use us to reach others. As long as we are in the relationship with God for what we can get out of it for ourselves, we will get nowhere. It is only when we are broken and poured out, just like Christ, that we find His purpose for us and His abundance.
When the teachers of the law asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment, He said:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:37-40 NIV
If life ever gets complicated for me, I go back this verse to understand my life mission. Love God and Love Others. That's ALL that life is about for me. Only as I love God am I able to love others, but as I love others, I also feel His love.
So, as I also told you on Monday, I have found Contentment in my life. I believe I have finally reached a place where I am trusting Him fully, walking with Him in love and giving my life to His purposes. I've died to all my old pre-conceived ideas and expectations, and I have given my dreams to Him. I want to be used by Him to reach others and help them. That's all I care about anymore. Though I died, I've never been more alive in Christ. And I know it's all for His glory and His plans. I realize that He did answer Psalm 37:4 in my life, but He first changed the desires of my heart.
Brothers and sisters, God has a plan and purpose for your life. I pray you don't spend one more day wrestling with God, but that you might surrender to Him. Give Him your 100% Trust and Obey the next step He puts in front of you, even if it doesn't make sense. Your trust and obedience will bring the Lord delight and will change your heart. You will find that you will be used to forever change the lives of others. There are desperate souls waiting on you.