Obedience and Breakthrough

Obedience and Breakthrough

Focus word: Obedience and Breakthrough
Focus verse: Isaiah 1:19 “If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land”

Declaration: My obedience brings breakthrough today; I walk in the faithfulness of God’s promises.

Breakthrough begins with a willing heart.
Willingness comes before movement/ action. In Matthew 15.8, Jesus says “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” God often works first on the heart and then in the hands.Sometimes it’s the opposite for us- we do many things but our heart is not always in it. God works inside out- first in the heart and then in the hands.
Psalm 40:8 “I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.”
How many can say “Have thine own way Lord”?
Philippians 2:13 “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”
God can implant His desires and His will in our heart if we submit to Him. This is why God loved David- he was a man after God’s own heart who would do whatever God willed.
2 Corinthians 8:12 “For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable
A resistant heart delays what obedience could release.
Our spiritual heart can have a block where it refuses to obey God or pursue Him. Willingness removes the spiritual block and turns the handle of a door. God values surrendered desire or our own will. God can move in us when we surrender to Him and place ourselves in the right place.
Obedience turns promise into experience.
Many promises are heard but never walked into. Israelites experienced the promises of God after 40 years in the wilderness when Joshua led them into the Promised Land.
Deuteronomy 28:1 “If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.”
John 2:5 “His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
When the servants obeyed Jesus’ instructions, they tasted its goodness!
Revelation alone isn’t enough, response matters. Just knowing what the Word is and knowing what God desires is not enough. We need to walk in that instruction and obey it. Instruction ignored cannot produce results.
Obedience converts truth into testimony.
Breakthrough often hides behind simple instructions.
God's instructions are practical, not dramatic.
Naaman was a fierce warrior, but he had leprosy. Initially he wasn’t willing to obey God’s instruction to immerse himself in the Jordan river seven times. When his soldiers nudged him, telling him how simple the instruction is and that it’s worth trying out, he obeyed. And he saw God’s healing!
Even water baptism is like this. So many people resist baptism and block their blessings and miracles even when it is such a simple instruction that even Jesus followed.
2 Kings 5:14 “So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that.”
Joshua 6:20 “When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged.”
Luke 5:5-6 “But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless fat Your word I will let down the net.” And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking.”
Even Peter was given a simple instruction to cast the net on the right side- and he saw a miracle! Don’t despise God’s simple instructions.
Sometimes even you pray you may feel a very small nudge to call someone or pray for someone; always obey that nudge. If you keep ignoring the nudge, we may grieve the Holy Spirit who may stop nudging you so.
In big factories, small switches control the whole thing. It is our small obedience that impacts our life in big ways.
Jesus obeyed the simple law in getting baptised from John the Baptist who was his creation. This simple obedience is what gave us our salvation.
If there is anything you have been ignoring or not obeying, decide to change that today.
Obedience positions you to enjoy the good things.
Our focus Verse of today talks about enjoying the good things of the land. God is not only a God of commands, but a God of covenant blessings.
Psalm 84:11 “no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly”
Obedience is not punishment.
Obeying parents brings blessings upon children. It feels like a punishment at the time, but later it is revealed as a huge blessing.
We first need willingness in our hearts to obey God. And then we need to act on it and move forward in it. Instead of debating or disputing instruction, only to struggle with guilt, obey God’s simple instructions. Don’t delay your obedience, that is also a block to your blessings.