VIKTOR SAARI MINISTRIES

 Just how important is obedience? Well if you want to live the abundant life Jesus promised, it is of vital importance. What is obedience? In the simplest form it is faith. This may seem very different to what you have heard, but it is the truth. Obedience is faith because it is the action of your belief. See you act on the word God has given to the Holy Spirit, which is given to your spirit; because you believe in God. That’s why when you don`t act on the word given by the Holy Spirit it is like a big slap in the face to God.

Really, how can you believe for healing or anything else in your life, saying that God is you’re all in all and then not listen what He tells you? You’re making Him be the God you want Him to be for the things you need, but you are not making Him the God that He really is. You have made your own sick twisted image of a god that does not exist. What you are saying by this is that you expect the wonderful Father in heaven, the one who rules justly, to bless your disobedient actions. You expect your finances to be met by Him; you expect to receive healing from Him and yet walk in disobedience!

Would you think someone would reward you in this natural world if you continually disobeyed? Imagine not ever going to work or following what you are instructed to accomplish at the work place. Would you then go to your boss and actually expect a pay check? I think not! Yes, I understand God is a loving God and He loves us. That’s exactly why He gives us chance after chance, because He loves us just that much.

I Peter 2:8 makes quite clear why we do not receive the promises that God has given us, through Jesus:

⁸And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.

See, because of disobedience you will stumble in the healing scriptures, you will stumble at the financial scriptures! Yet, some go Sunday after Sunday get the pastor to lay hands on them and then go their on and do their own thing. They continue to pray to God to meet their financial needs, yet never bothering to listen and be led by the Holy Spirit.

If you can’t hear Him, I got news for you. You can’t hear Him because it has been so long since you have listened to Him. The Holy Spirit is a perfect gentleman and He won’t bother you if you don’t want Him to.

You need to understand why the Holy Spirit asks you to do things. Because they are for you! When He asks you to do something, it is for you! When He asks you to bless someone or doing something it is for your blessing! See, if you don’t bless a person He told you to bless, He will find someone else to do it. Nobody that God wants to bless is going to go without. Yes, by going out and doing something for someone it is to their benefit, but realise the importance of the blessing of obedience for you.

We need to as a church come to the realisation of just how bad disobedience is. I Samuel 15.23 puts it this way:

²³For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

We often look for God to heal us, to provide when we are in need, but the truth is the need has already been met! If you don’t think so, you are saying that what Jesus did by dying on the cross did not provide that for you. Your saying He has to do something more.

So if this has been done, why do we not have it? Because this “abundant life” Jesus promised is something you have to choose. He will not make you do it. You make the choice, life and blessing or death and cursing. Romans 8:5 shows us, by what we choose to walk according to, will determine what kind of life we receive:

 ⁵For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

The things of this world are nothing but dirt, if God is not involved in them. It is only through living and being led by the Holy Spirit that they will give you satisfaction. Because much like the Holy Spirit makes your mortal body alive, He also makes the things of this natural realm alive. He gives us the ability to experience them in the perfect way God intended them to be experienced.

We see on numerous occasions of what made the great men of God, great. It was obedience. Joshua in Joshua 6 obeyed the word of God. He by the obedience to God defeated Jericho and made their wall fall. Gideon obeyed God in Judges 7. He took only the three-hundred men that God had appointed, and defeated the Midianites. And we see our great Saviour, Jesus also obeys:

²⁸Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.

²⁹And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.

Think if we had to make the decisions that Joshua and Gideon made. Would we have got tried of walking around the city of Jericho after a few days? Would we have said something like, I guess it’s just not God’s will to have the wall fall down? Or would we not even have bothered to start walking around Jericho in the first place? Because rationally speaking, walls do not just fall down because we walk around them. Would we have thought it crazy to take only 300 men? Sadly that is the problem most of the time. We try to reason with God, instead of obey Him.

All because we value the things of this earth over the things of God, think about it. The only reason we do not listen to the Holy Spirit is because we are not willing to give up the things in the flesh. We have it backwards, when we think once we have our need met, we will meet someone else’s. Because our Bible clearly states seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matt 6.33)

Take Abraham for example. Yes, Abraham missed God on more than one occasion. He, much like us tried to bring the promises of God all on his own. But, he did eventually put God first and obeyed Him and received the promise of Isaac. But even though he held his son dear to him we see in Genesis 22 what kind of faith Abraham had in God, by his actions. He was willing to give up his son Isaac. This showed the fear of the Lord:

Exodus 22.12:

¹²And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

And it is the fear of the Lord, in the obedience to Him that opens up His covenant:

¹⁴The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.

This is exactly what happened to Abraham:

Exodus 22.16-18:

¹⁶And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:

¹⁷That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

¹⁸And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

So do you want to be blessed like Abraham? Do you your family and your family’s family to be blessed? Be led by the Spirit and obey His voice. Because if you don’t obey, you’re gonna pay!