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Can God Get Glory from My Life?
by Dominique Henderson
The other day I watched the PBS special entitled “The Madoff Affair”. It was very interesting to say the least. It chronicles a life of a man that lost himself in greed and selfishness. Unfortunately, as does all cases like his, it started with small instances in his life of dishonesty and cheating here and there. There are never any full blown blatant things that happen, just little bits along the way. Actions that lack integrity have to be nipped in the bud. They work much like yeast in dough. Before long they creep up on an individual and create a life of duplicity. However, today I am not going to write about Mr. Madoff, and the curse of sin and disobedience to God’s way of doing things. Instead, let us be called to remember the blessings of obedience. At times it seems the much harder thing to do because of our own will and pride, but the rewards are endless and worth going over, again and again. Be warned, the promises I speak of are conditional. And I believe they are this way because God always gives a choice to follow his way or our way. He lays out the consequences of each and tells us to choose his, but we are free to choose our own. We are not made as robots without the ability of free-will. Personally speaking, herein lies my problem at times. That is why for the next few weeks I have the urge to recite and rehearse the blessings of obedience hoping that as I reinforce these in my mind that they will also be a blessing to my fellow reader.
I see the first blessing of obedience as strength.
““Therefore, be careful to obey every command I am giving you today, so you may have strength to go in and take over the land you are about to enter. Deuteronomy 11:8
Why strength? Good question. Being in the shoes of the Israelites all those years ago, realize that they were promised (through covenant) to displace a nation of peoples “greater and mightier” than themselves (see Deuteronomy 4:38,7:1,9:1). For this reason, Israel was very afraid because they were considering their resources and strength—or lack thereof. They did not have the military strength to defeat these nations. All they had was God’s strength, which was more than enough. However, God’s strength would only be manifested on the condition that they followed his commands. I once heard a pastor say that God’s promises are like your momma’s, they are all conditional. Often my kids ask me or their mother for a treat after dinner. But they know that the condition to keeping our promise of a treat is that they eat their entire dinner. God is willing to bless us after our obedience to his will. And what is one of the benefits of that obedience—strength. Not just any strength but his strength. It is his ability to do what we would not be able to do ourselves. It is like when you have that financial obligation coming due and you realize that you cannot fulfill it unless God steps in and in a big way. You have shown obedience to his will through your tithes and offering, but things are looking as if they won’t work in your favor. Trust God for the strength to wait on him to come through for you! God will be faithful to his word as he was to the Hebrew boys that were thrown into a fiery furnace but came out unharmed and not even smelling of smoke. The only evidence of their fiery trial was that their shackles had been burned off! (see Daniel 3:25) God gives us his strength to make it to the next level in our Christian walk. Just as he told Joshua to be strong and courageous as Israel crossed over into Jericho he tells us to do the same. Obedience to this command allowed for Israel to conquer a city just by marching around its outer wall! God’s strength is awesome. And he gives us the chance to realize it for ourselves through our obedience to his will for our lives. So today my friend, what is God telling you to do? What has his voice whispered for you to do? It may be a task that you do not feel equipped to accomplish, but understand that God has given you a task that seems too big for you because it is too big for you! He wants your obedience to his will to unleash his strength on your behalf to accomplish what he has asked you to do. Be blessed by him by obeying his voice.
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