READ: JOSHUA 1:5-9
A week ago we began an incisive devotional journey into the subject of obedience. Let me remind you again: those who are obedient are blessed while disobedient have divine judgment hanging above their head. Today we shall focus our attention on the problem of partial obedience.
The problem of most born again Christians is not outright disobedience but partial obedience. There is no half measure with God. You cannot be married to God and be married to the devil at the same time. God will not tolerate you holding on to Him with one hand and holding on to the world with the other hand. You are either totally for Him or totally against. This is why He regards partial obedience as being worse than disobedience. MARK 12:29-30 says: “Jesus answered him,The first of all the commandments is: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” As far as God is concerned, you have to love completely. If you look through the scriptures, you will see that those who suffered most, after Adam and Eve, were those who obeyed God half-heartedly. They include, among others, Abraham, King Saul, Ananias and Sapphira, and the disciples. As for King Saul, God asked him to wipe out the tribe of the Amelekites and to destroy everything in their country. But he went there and killed everybody except the king and the cattle. When God spoke to him, he said he had obeyed God. God said he did not obey totally. This attracted serious punishment. He and all those who could have succeeded him perished the same day. Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of land and brought half of the proceeds to God, claiming that it was the whole. If they did not bring anything to God, they would not have died. The two of them died on the same day. These examples teach us that partial obedience is as heinous as disobedience. Are you manifesting partial obedience in any area of your life? Repent today.
The problem of most born again Christians is not outright disobedience but partial obedience. There is no half measure with God. You cannot be married to God and be married to the devil at the same time. God will not tolerate you holding on to Him with one hand and holding on to the world with the other hand. You are either totally for Him or totally against. This is why He regards partial obedience as being worse than disobedience. MARK 12:29-30 says: “Jesus answered him,The first of all the commandments is: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” As far as God is concerned, you have to love completely. If you look through the scriptures, you will see that those who suffered most, after Adam and Eve, were those who obeyed God half-heartedly. They include, among others, Abraham, King Saul, Ananias and Sapphira, and the disciples. As for King Saul, God asked him to wipe out the tribe of the Amelekites and to destroy everything in their country. But he went there and killed everybody except the king and the cattle. When God spoke to him, he said he had obeyed God. God said he did not obey totally. This attracted serious punishment. He and all those who could have succeeded him perished the same day. Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of land and brought half of the proceeds to God, claiming that it was the whole. If they did not bring anything to God, they would not have died. The two of them died on the same day. These examples teach us that partial obedience is as heinous as disobedience. Are you manifesting partial obedience in any area of your life? Repent today.
MEMORIZE: EPHESIANS 6:14 –Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
