The Cost of Obedience

In Christ, what appears to be a cost for you is, in reality, an investment with enormous returns.

Text for Today – 1 Samuel 15:22 – . . . Behold, top obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

Obedience to someone you really love costs you nothing.  Rather, it is a pleasure to comply with that person, and especially if that person loves you with an equal or greater love.  There is no love that surpasses the love God has for you, and if your obedience to Him is due to your love for Him, your obedience really costs you nothing.

The cost of obedience is not to the loving servant or child, but to those who would seek to cause that servant or child to do something outside the love walk.  Your obedience to your heavenly Father upsets the religious minded, the carnally minded, the backslider, and the lost.  Your obedience to your heavenly father will cause the plans of all manner of people to be upset, and they won’t like that at all.  Your obedience to your heavenly Father irritates, and even angers those who have pridefully chosen to follow the lyrics of as well-known song by some even better-known singers who declared, “I did it my way.”

In life’s ledger books, those who obey the Lord will not show a loss column, and their liabilities column will be totally clear.  However, their profits and assets columns will be filled with the richness of the Lord Whom we obey.  You see, the Lord gives His beloved rest and sleep.  He gives great peace to those who live His law, and to love His law is to be a doer of His law; that is to say, obedient.

The true cost of your obedience to your heavenly Father is carried by those who choose to disobey.  You see, your obedience to your heavenly Father sets clear standards that the world should follow, and shows clear evidence of the blessings of God on His obedient children.  Disobedience to God breeds fear, and fear has torment.  That’s a horrible cost.  Sickness and disease arising from the lax moral atmosphere of our world is rampant.  All those diseases are horrible, and many are fatal.  The result is a cost that cannot be calculated.

Your obedience to your heavenly Father sets you forth as the light of the world, and into a light by which all can observe.  The cost of your obedience is paid by those who choose not to walk in the light, but rather walk into darkness that is made even darker by the presence of light; that’s you.  Your obedience to your heavenly Father costs you nothing in reality, and is, in fact, quite profitable.  Ho, those in the darkness may think it costs you something, especially when they see you walk away from what they may count valuable, but what you gain is far superlative to anything you appear to give, or give up.

Manna for Today – Luke 23:26; Psalm 119; Psalm 64; Psalm 91; Job 33:23-24; Mark 10:29-20

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