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-- © GodSpeak International 2001 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Rodney Hogue RodHogue@aol.com
http://www.restorationdepot.org
Editor: Teresa Seputis
Transcribed by: Nichole Marshall

Vision For Your Life And Ministry

By Rodney Hogue

Lesson 10
Checklist For Obedience
(part 1)

In Matthew 25:21 (the parable of the talents), the master says: "you did well, you are a good servant and you can be trusted. You did well with small things so I will let you care for much greater things." That verse emphasizes a spiritual principal: God doesn't put us in charge of the big things until we have demonstrated faithfulness in the small things. Many of us ask the Lord to give us the big things. We ask Him to give us greater levels of prophetic revelation and to increase our anointing. God wants to do this for us, and he will. But first, you have to be faithful with what He has already given you to do. Then He will increase it and He will give you more. But until you have been faithful over the small things, God puts things "on hold." He waits for you to get faithful in what He's already tasked you with before He gives you more responsibility or greater anointing.

So let's look at where to begin, how to become faithful in the small things? What are the things we need to be doing to demonstrate that we are faithful? Where do we begin? Let's start with some very basic, simple and essential elements of the faith. For some of you, these will be very obvious things. But a lot of us have a hard time doing these simple basic things. And we must master them before we can move on to "greater things."

Let's look at the early church. When they were first established, they did certain things, then God blessed them and they were able to expand. Look at Acts Chapter 2. It describes the activities of those first Christians...

Acts 2:42-47, "They joined with other believers and devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and to fellowship, sharing in the Lord's supper and prayer, a deep sense of awe came over them all and the Apostles performed many miracles, signs and wonders and all of the believers met together constantly and shared everything they had, the sold their possessions and shared the proceeds with those in need. They worshiped together at the temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's supper and shared their meals with great joy and generosity and all the while praising God and enjoying the good will of all the people and each day the Lord added to their numbers those who were being saved."

From this, we find five things that I call a "Checklist for Obedience." There are five very basic, simple things that these guys did. I put them to you in the form of a question:

  1. Are you committed to the word of God?
  2. Are you fellowshiping with other believers?
  3. Are you a worshiper?
  4. Do you have a life style of prayer?
  5. Are you a generous giver?

Are you faithful in these things? Let's look at them in more detail. There is too much to cover in one lesson, so I will split this into two lessons.

ARE YOU COMMITTED TO THE WORD OF GOD?

From the very beginning, they were devoted to the Apostles' teaching. That teaching is what became our of New Testament scripture. At that time, all they had was the Old Testament, so the Apostles taught them about the life of Jesus. Those teachings were eventually written down and we have them in the word. The early believers devoted themselves to spending some time under authority, under teaching, hearing the word. They were committed and they were devoted to the word. And God wants us to be committed to His word -- you can't get any more simple than that.

What does His word do? Let's look at a couple of passages.

Psalms 119:105 says, "thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" what does God's word do, shines the way.

II Timothy 3: 15-17, "you have been taught the Holy Scriptures from childhood and they have given you the wisdom to receive salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right. It's God's way preparing us in every way, fully equipped for every good thing God wants us to do."

Scripture does several things. It gives us direction, it shows us where to go. Scripture gives us wisdom. It teaches us how to relate, we know how to treat people and we know what to say. Scripture teaches me what is truth and what is not truth. I can know what truth is because it's found right here in the word; it teaches me what is right and what is wrong. God's word corrects me when I mess up or when I make a mistake. A person might try to correct me and I may not receive it. But I cannot argue with the word of God. It has authority as it corrects. And it prepars me and it equips me to do what God says. We cannot get any more simple than that. If you want to know what God wants you to do, He has given it to us in black and white in His word.

Have you made a real commitment to the word of God? Let me explain how to do that... Be a person who takes in the word, be a receiver of the word. Be someone who listens to the word. Put yourself in a position to hear it, to read it, to study it, to meditate on it. Are you doing this? Good, but it is not enough. We don't just take in the word of God, we also live it, and obey it. If we just listen and then ignore what it says, that does not do us any good. The Bible has a lot of verses that talks about that. James 1:22 says, "do what God's teaching says. When you only listen and do nothing you are fooling yourselves. It has no value if you are not going to do it." You need to be a doer of the word.

If you want to know God's plan for your life, the best place to begin is right there in the instruction manual that He has given you.

ARE YOU FELLOWSHIPING WITH OTHER BELIEVERS?

Acts 2:42 uses the word "fellowship." That is very clear and simple, but if you read on you will see this, "they met constantly together, they worshiped together, they met in each others homes and they shared meals together". These guys had fellowship and they understood fellowship.

In other words, we cannot forsake getting together and having relationship with other people, with the other members of the body of Christ. Hebrews 10:25 says, "you should not stay away from church meetings (as some are doing), you should meet together and encourage each other. Do this even more as you see the day coming." You should hang around other believers, it is important that you do.

Ask yourself these set of questions: Who is your home base of emotional and spiritual support for you to become a reproducing disciple? Who is speaking into your life to do that? Where can you go and who can you go to in order too have some weekly support? Who is speaking into your life? Can you tell me the people who pray for you everyday? Can you tell me those whom you have a relationship with who are praying for you? Who are the people that are encouraging you? Where is your spiritual covering, your spiritual authority? Do you have a relationship with anybody?

Let me warn you about a strategy of the enemy. The bible says that "we are not to be ignorant of his schemes." There is a particular strategy that He works to attempt to take out the believer; it is isolation! He employs this strategy to take you out. When God designed you He didn't make you perfect. In fact, He made you incomplete. He made you to be interdependent upon other members of the body of Christ. If you read I Corinthians chapter 12, you will realize that there is the body of Christ and that you are part of it. The eyes don't work well unless they are attached to the body. Likewise, the legs don't work well without eyes. The body needs to work together. You have a very important part, the body needs you and you need the body. God made you that way -- interdependent upon other believers. That is the way He designed you.

A pastor of a large church in Southern California said, "I was reading the word and I found 30 acts of obedience that you can't even do if you are not connected with the body. You can't encourage, your can't love, I mean there are a lot of things that you cannot do if you are not connected or related to anybody." You can't even obey God, if you are not connected. These are limitations. You need to be related to other people in the body of Christ. If you are not connected and if you are not related, then you will not be a success in the Kingdom of God. You limit your possibilities and you jeopardize your life and you put yourself at risk for failure if other people are not involved with your life and committed to you to build you up.

Let me describe how isolation works. The enemy sets you out here and all of a sudden your relationships get cut off and pretty soon you are by yourself. Then that roaring lion who is seeking someone to devour has real easy prey. Nobody is praying, nobody is protecting, nobody is covering, they are by themselves. We will just cut them off a little bit, get them out there a little bit further, so when they cry for help nobody will hear it. That is how isolation works.

Now, I know for some of you fellowship with other people is not a very natural thing. There are several reasons that this can be difficult. It could be that you have been hurt, you've been wounded. Your ability to relate is very hindered because of the way that you have been hurt in the past. Some of you are just out right introverts, and you are not comfortable with people. Some of you don't take the effort, you kind of let people come to you instead of going out to other people. But fellowshiping with other believers is a discipline that we have to commit ourselves too. It is for your survival, your safety and your protection. You can't be sitting around waiting for everybody to come knocking at your door and say "come join my home fellowship", "come and lets have sweet fellowship together", "lets be buddies". If you are going to wait for that it may never happen.

Fellowshiping is a discipline that we have to commit ourselves too. You have to be in relationship with other people, just to pray for you, to encourage you, to lift you up. Because what happens, after a while, while you are out there your voice is not being heard. And we cannot say that it is the responsibility of everybody else to deal with you. You are going to have to take some responsibility. Take some initiative, its for your safety.

(We will cover the remaining three points on our checklist in our next lesson.)


-- © GodSpeak International 2001 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

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