KEEP AN ATTITUDE OF OBEDIENCE

The psalmist David said of God, “Sacrifice and offering
You do not desire, nor have You delight in them; You have
given me the capacity to hear and obey [Your law, a more
valuable service than] burnt offerings and sin offerings
[which] You do not require” (Psalm 40:6).
God delights in the atmosphere of our obedience.
Naturally, it doesn’t do God any good to talk to us if we
aren’t going to listen and obey.
For many years, I wanted God to talk to me, but I wanted
to pick and choose what to obey. I wanted to do what He
said if I thought it was a good idea. If I didn’t like what I
was hearing, then I would act like it wasn’t from God. God
has given us the capacity both to hear Him and to obey
Him. He does not require a higher sacrifice than
obedience.
Some of what God says to you will be exciting. Some
things God tells you might not be so thrilling to hear. But
that doesn’t mean that what He tells you won’t work out
for good if you will just do it His way.
It is amazing how we can change our mind if we will just
let things settle for a few hours.
If God tells you that you were rude to a person, and He
wants you to apologize, it won’t work to answer back,
“Well, that person was rude to me too!” If you talk back
with excuses, you may have prayed, and even heard, but
you haven’t obeyed.

Instead, go apologize if God tells you to do so. Take
yourself through the walk of obedience and say to that
person, “I was rude to you, and I’m sorry.” Now you have
obeyed. Now God’s anointing can flow through your life,
because you are obedient.
I was moved by a story about a message from a pastor of a
very large church who spoke at a pastors conference in
Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hundreds of pastors came from all over
the nation to hear this man tell what he did to build his
church. He told them simply, “I pray, and I obey. I pray,
and I obey.”
One of the ministers who attended this meeting expressed
to me his disappointment in the pastor’s message. He said,
“I spent all that money and went all that distance to hear
this world-renowned leader tell me how his ministry
grew to the point it is. For three hours, in various ways, he
said the same thing, ‘I pray. I obey. I pray. I obey. I pray. I
obey. I pray. I obey.’ I kept thinking, Surely there’s
something else.”

Looking back over nearly three decades of walking with
God, I would have to agree that if I put into words the
simplest explanation for all the success we have enjoyed,
we too have learned to pray, hear from God, and then do
what God tells us to do. Over the years I have been
seeking God about the call on my life and pressing
forward in what I feel He has told me to do. The essence
of it all is that I have prayed, and I have obeyed. It has not
always been popular with everyone else, but I have
prayed, I have obeyed—and it has worked. God’s plan is
not hard; we make it hard.
If you want God’s will for your life, I can tell you the
recipe in its simplest form: Pray and obey. God has given
you the capacity to do both.
Pray.
And obey.
Pray.
And obey.
Pray.
And obey.
Pray.
And obey.
If you do that, before you know it, you will have stepped
right into God’s perfect plan for your life.