Obedience

As my act of obedience I have decided to restart this blog. I desperately need the accountability! I want to make sure that not only am I reading my Bible everyday, but that I'm learning from it and that it is slowly changing my life. I do not want to look back on my life a year from now and see the same person that I see today.

Sometimes I feel so stale as if nothing has ever changed. I see the sin in my life and I know that I have carried it with my forever, but every once in a while when I really glance back into my past I see tremendous amounts of change. Praise the Lord. There was a time when I starting to serve the Lord (again) that I was frustrated because of the shortness of time. "I can't believe its only been two years!!!" It seemed so insignificant in comparison to my whole life that had been such a rollercoaster of a relationship with my God. Although my times of living in my faith greatly outweighed the time I spent in utter rebellion, those times were always present in my mind - huge failures destroying the life that God had prepared for me.

It has now been 5 years since I have been on a continual upward journey. In 2005 I got married and I consider that to be the starting point of my obedience. Not that I don't repeatedly fail, but I have not stepped back into the utter rebellion that my flesh has always called me to in the past. Together my husband and I have faced the challenges of walking with the Lord and year by year we have moved forward, never looking back. Praise God for His grace and His mercy. Praise Him for giving us everything we need to live a life of godliness! One thing I know for sure, is that I will forever carry the capability to return to a life characterized by sin, but by the grace of God I do not HAVE to. He has given me a choice to follow Him, so I will be obedient to that call. I have learned that being at peace with God is worth anything He asks of me and anywhere He leads me!

I've felt distant from Jesus for a short while now - I feel the conviction to spend more time with Him, but when it comes down to that time, I make other choices. I've decided to start reading again through Matthew. What better way to connect myself to my Lord than to study the course of His life here on earth, to see how he faced the issues I face and understand His love for people? I pray that it will rub on me - sooner than later.

One of the themes running through the first 3 chapters of Matthew is obedience. I don't think I've ever really noticed before because I was distracted by the Christmas story itself. Jesus, in the ultimate act of obedience chose to give up His home, separate Himself from His Father, and reduce Himself to the confines of a human life - out of obedience to God. Mary, chose to give up a normal life and a good reputation to give birth to the Son of God. Joseph gave up his good standing in the community along with his reputation to marry a woman who was having a child that was not his own. The magi from the east defied a King in order to save this baby's life, ultimately putting themselves in jeopardy. Obedience to God comes at a great cost - but it is always worth it. In Matthew 3, Jesus has grown into a man and sets out to be baptized by his cousin, John. They have a discussion over who should baptize who, and again, Jesus is obedient to His Father, allows a mere sinful man to baptize Him, the Son of God so that He can be the example to us. Jesus wasn't the only one who came out - hundreds of people came to see John baptizing people. Among them, were a group of Pharisees. John it almost seems goes out of his way to insult them by referring to them as a brood of vipers! His intent however, was to warn them of living a life of disobedience. He told them to go and live a life characterized by repentance - in other words, obedience.

Its funny, I think about obedience for two days and the morning of the third I am tested in this very area. I guess that's where the growing comes in. Lord help me to be obedient - at home, at work, at church, to my husband and ultimately to You in ALL things!