{"id":12604,"date":"2022-01-02T00:42:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-02T00:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=12604"},"modified":"2022-01-02T00:42:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T00:42:00","slug":"obedience-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/12604\/obedience-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Obedience First"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,<\/span>

Hearing these last two days about a young person’s situation has brought this to mind.<\/span><\/span>

Twenty years ago the Lord put it on my heart to tell a person in my family who had the holy Ghost that they were living contrary to the will of God and that they needed to change what they were doing. Jesus let me know I would be offering whatever I had in the form of earthly goods to help that person as they needed it\u2014if they would just obey Jesus. I was happy to do that because whatever I had was the Lord’s. Jesus also let me know that I could not offer that help until the person had yielded to the will of God.<\/span><\/span>

This person in my family was in a tough spot to be sure, and what God was requiring of them was scary. But relief was there; it was hidden behind the door of obedience.<\/span><\/span>

That was not my choice but by God’s design.<\/span><\/span>

I arrived that day and I delivered the message from Jesus to my family member just as I was supposed to, and I was eager to help them as God had instructed me.\u00a0 The person heard me out and even confessed that all I had said was true.\u00a0 But ultimately chose to stay their course, asking me in the end, “What am I supposed to do if I make the change?”\u00a0 I don’t know the exact words I told them, but I do recall telling them that the outcome didn’t matter.\u00a0 We don’t obey God because of the outcome\u2014that is His business.<\/span><\/span>

They chose their path – and I left for home.\u00a0 Little did they know that day that God their creator had their answer waiting just as soon as they stepped out in faith.\u00a0 But they had to step out first!\u00a0 I guess it is kind of like stepping out into thin air when there is no visible stepping stone.\u00a0 Obeying God sometimes can feel like stepping on nothing and trusting Him.<\/span><\/span>

All the way home that day and for many days after, like a trumpet sounding in my heart, I heard: “First the obedience, then the relief.”\u00a0 Over and over that played in my heart until I believe it was permanently etched inside.<\/span><\/span>

We don’t obey God because of the results it brings.\u00a0 Sometimes it might hurt.\u00a0 We don’t serve Him to be saved or to have a better life; that is His business.\u00a0 We serve Him because of Who he is, and because of who we are.\u00a0 And the Spirit in us says, “YES.\u201d<\/span><\/span>

Jerry<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,Hearing these last two days about a young person’s situation has brought this to mind.Twenty years ago the Lord put it on my heart to tell a person in my family who had the holy Ghost that they were living contrary to the will of God and that they needed to change what they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}