Give God Another Chance --- God Wants You to Live an Obedient Life
Why Don’t You Give God Another Chance?
Pastor Rory Clark Barah Ministries www.barahministires.com
Hi there!
My name is Rory Clark and I am the Pastor of Barah Ministries…a worldwide Christian Church based in Mesa, AZ
I have a question for you…
Why Don’t You Give God Another Chance?
That’s the focus of these ten-minute lessons. You can give God another chance.
Are you confused about anything in your life? If I told you there is a way to never be confused again…would you want to know about it? First Corinthians, Chapter 14, Verse 33 says…
1CO 14:33 …for God is not a God of confusion…
God is neither confused nor confusing. When you get to know God and His Word, you’ll have clarity. In the bible, God tells you the way to go…He makes your path straight…IF you will listen to Him. In today’s lesson, you’ll learn the kind of life God wants for you…God wants you to move from confusion, to clarity to confidence.
God Wants You to Live an Obedient Life!
God Wants You to Live an Obedient Life! In omniscience, God knows all the knowable, and God is fully aware that His creatures won’t live a sinless life. We learned that in our last lesson. So you may ask, “What Kind of Life DOES God
Want Me to Live?” That’s a great question! Does God want you to be perfect? Does God expect you to strive to please Him? If you have been exposed to religion, your answer to those questions has to be, “Yes! God expects all of those things from me!” But the bible paints a very different picture.
God wants you to live an obedient life! Psalm 103, Verse 12 says…
PSA 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions (our personal sins) from us.
God knows you won’t live a sinless life. The Lord Jesus Christ went to the Cross to separate the sinner from sins…First Peter, Chapter 2, Verse 24 says…
1PE 2:24 …the Lord Jesus Christ Himself bore our sins in His own body on the Cross, so that we might die to the power of sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.
Does God want you to be perfect? If He does, you’re in trouble…here’s what Paul has to say in Romans, Chapter 7, Verse 15…
ROM 7:15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
We are not perfect, and we KNOW we are not perfect. God does not expect us to be perfect.
Does God expect you to strive to please Him? No! Psalm 46, Verse 10 says…
PSA 46:10 “Cease striving and know that I am God…”
No! God does not expect us to strive to please Him. Yet if you have been exposed to religion, you have been taught to strive to please God. Why?
RELIGION is a strategy of Satan, the enemy of God, and it is designed to encourage you to engage in the fruitless effort of striving to please God…and when you are unsuccessful at pleasing Him, it encourages you to become indifferent or antagonistic to God rather than encouraging you to reject the liar who tempted you to strive in the first place.
Religion works! Most people who have been involved in a religion are off on the spiritual sidelines. Instead of blaming the religion for not delivering on its promises, people hop from religion to religion only to find the same falseness. Finally, instead of quitting on religion, they quit on God.
Religion is beautifully deceptive. The best lies, of course, are 99% true. And religion is such a lie. Religion looks so much like the truth that its lie is almost imperceptible. Have you ever seen counterfeit money? It’s amazingly deceptive. You can’t always tell counterfeit money from real money. Have you been a victim of the deception called religion? I have…for years…and it works.
Christianity is not a religion. Christianity is a relationship with the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…a deep, intimate and personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word.
What kind of life does God want you to live? Not a religious one!
God Wants You to Live an Obedient Life!
He wants you to obey His requests of your own free will. God is not a tyrant. He doesn’t lord His authority over you while simultaneously robbing you of your right of self-determination. He doesn’t force you to do anything. God is gracious. God is merciful. God is comforting. God is loving. God is fair. God gives us guidance through His inerrant Word, the bible.
What sort of people does God want us to be? What kind of life does God want us to live? The answer? God wants you to live an obedient life! Let’s investigate the wisdom of being obedient to God and His Word.
Living an obedient life means trusting God.
The fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is Sovereign means nothing in your life and nothing in the universe happens without His knowledge or without His permission. The Lord knows what works and what does not work. By asking you to trust Him, the Lord is asking you to make the choice to be in a relationship with Him, and to do exactly what He requests of your free will. God is the only perfect parent, and He knows perfectly, what works perfectly for you, His imperfect child.
There are thousands of commands in the bible. Every command is a request from the Lord to your free will. God tells us in His Word what to do and what not to do. You decide. There are positive commands that say, “This is what works.” John, Chapter 14, Verse 1 says…
JOH 14:1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God (the Father), believe also in Me (the Lord Jesus Christ).”
There are negative commands that say, “This is what does not work.” Second Corinthians, Chapter 6, Verse 14 is a command to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ…it says…
2CO 6:14 Do not be bound together with (married to) unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness (believers) and lawlessness (unbelievers), or what fellowship has light (believers) with darkness (unbelievers)?
If we trust God, we trust what He tells us to do. Nothing we do that is contrary to God’s Will or His Word will result in a success. That’s not confusing, is it?
Living an obedient life means trusting the truth of God and the truth of God’s Word
All of the commands of God are simply requests directed to your free will. He says to you, “Here’s what works. Here’s what does not work. What would you like to do?” When you trust that God knows what He is talking about, and He does because He is omniscient…and once you realize that God’s Word is a navigation device for your life, obedience to God and His Word eliminates confusion.
Living an obedient life means living free from worry.
Philippians, Chapter 4, Verse 6 says…
PHI 4:6 Be anxious for nothing (stop worrying about anything), but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Obedience begins when we voluntarily adhere to God’s requests, and this obedience extends into every aspect of our lives…even in the workplace. A friend of mine described his first encounter with His boss. My friend said, “The boss told me, ‘You need to think like me. You need to know my mind so you’ll produce the job the way I want you to. It’s my name on the bottom of the check.’” My friend said that it was a comforting lesson. If he followed the instruction, he knew he would never have to worry about having a job. Here’s what God would say to us about obedience…
“You need to think like me. You need to know my mind. When you know my mind, you’ll know me. When you know me, you’ll love me, and you’ll do things exactly the way I want you to. As your CREATOR, it’s my signature at the bottom of your life.”
So obey your God and don’t worry…
If you like these short lessons, visit our website at www.barahministries.com. That’s www.B-A-R-A-H-ministries.com We have two different one hour lessons per week to edify your spiritual life. Please join us. And keep on giving God another chance. I’m Pastor Rory Clark.
Pastor Rory Clark Barah Ministries www.barahministires.com
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