Obedience Rather Than Deliverance

When illness or problems arise, we have a tendency to cry out to God in our despair and ask Him for our immediate deliverance. But when times are going well for us, our urgency for prayer is not foremost in our minds. Don't get me wrong, there are times when we do need immediate deliverance but God is not always willing because His ways are high above our ways and He is in control.

An anecdote

Allow me to relate a short story of a man I know well. He is a Christian. When the pandemic hit, in frustration he began to drink alcohol. His consumption became daily and he drank all day. He wanted to stop but physically he could not. For 30 days and even several more he drank and drank and drank. He never drew a sober breath during this entire period. From late March to mid-May he remained drunk.

He was too weak and drunk to buy his own beer and liquor and could not function without it. His caretakers ensured he had alcohol. He would pray and pray and pray for God's deliverance and physically cry out to God, all to no avail. And then he remembered to contact his physician for medication to withdraw from the powerful spirits that had paralyzed him.

Armed with the pills, he took them and advised his caretakers to watch over him. Three days later later he began to eat and within a week he was back to normal. When he came to his senses he realized he had spent over $1,000 on booze.

Obedience

He later told us he had been disobedient. He knew he was not supposed to get drunk but rather be filled with the Holy Spirit. But he did it anyway. Like many of us, rather than pursue obedience, he opted to try to take the easy way out by asking God for deliverance. God wants us to be obedient. Sin handcuffs our relationship to God and we fall away from Him, not the other way around.

Evangelist Charles Finney once stated, “The man who is convicted of one sin is convicted of all. But the man who is convicted of all sins is convicted of none.” What Finney meant was that if we are truly going to make changes in our lives, we need to be specific about our sins.

You see, the key to any lasting change in our lives is what the Bible calls repentance. The word repentance means having a change of mind that leads to a change in the direction we are heading. But the key to repentance is to be specific. That's what Evangelist Finney was saying.

We need to stop throwing up half-hearted prayers that sound something like this: "Lord, I have sinned. Please deliver be from them all. In Jesus' name, amen and amen."

That's like throwing a grenade at a swarm of flies. It's directed at the target but seeks an immediate end to the pests that afflict but which won't occur. Before I go further, let's not forget that God is able to deliver us immediately if He chooses to do so. Think about Daniel and his companions in the fiery furnace. Delivered!

Doing better?

Here is where we fail. We try and do better. But guess what - we wind up right back where we were. We have to get specific about that one sin that is really adversely affecting our lives and specifically pray for strength to overcome it. We put on the breastplate of righteousness and refuse to give in to the sin. Call it out, "Lord, I have sinned against you as a drunk (or whatever the sin is in our life). I need your help. I cannot do it alone."

And once we become obedient to God over one sin, we tackle another and another and another and pursue practical righteousness. It's not easy - it is hard work.

A message to mothers

You mothers will know what I mean when I say we do not have to teach our children to do wrong, because they already know how to do that! They have the same disease we do: the sin nature we are all born with. We teach them to do good and be obedient to us their mother and father.

When they do wrong we correct them and discipline them. We should anyway. I do see a lot of kids in my country who have parents that let them run wild. Later, these parents wonder where they went wrong when their child is hurt, gets involved with drugs, or runs afoul of the law. They failed to correct and discipline them. They failed to ensure their kid(s) were obedient.

God sends people to correct us, too. And He will discipline His children, we believers. Why? Because He loves us and wants us to be the best we can be. Obedience to God takes practice. We form good habits by praying, reading God's word, and hanging out with Godly people.

In like manner, we avoid the temptations of this world. We need to cut people loose in our lives who are bad influences. It is easy to fall into sin because it is all around us. It's easy to cave into peer pressure or follow the crowd, too. But where do our sins get us? For one thing, they make us miserable and destroy our relationship with others.

Closing

What specific sin is binding you and causing problems in your life and relationship to God and others? Be specific - call it out. God wants to hear about it, and He wants some sincere repentance from us- a turning away from it. Change your mind about that sin and practice righteousness. How?

"Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: (Ephesians 6:14-17, NIV).