Obedience & Faith

As my children and I are reading through the whole Bible out loud, I just want to encourage others to do this also.  There is some power of the Holy Spirit that has been moving with my kids and I as God's Word is spoken aloud.  Though I've read through the Bible several times in my life, it's not had the impact as it now is.  Perhaps years of going through a painful desert wilderness experience is helping me relate to the children of Israel coming out of Egypt.

Though the children of Israel were slaves, at one point in the desert, they thought they would've been better off to continue to be Egyptian slaves.  God had set them free, but there was a journey to the Promised Land.  It was in the desert wilderness that God has had to uproot all those things that kept them in spiritual slavery of the lies of the enemy.

What are some of those?  I was provided for.  Yes, I am a slave to my job, a prisoner to debt, but at least I had a job to pay for the debts.  I at least had a home.  No, I don't like that I can't speak out against the Pharoah, but at least I know that and can keep my mouth shut.  This will do.  This isn't really all THAT bad if you think about it.  Really, who really can live their dreams?  It's not realistic.

The journey from Egypt to the Promised Land wasn't thousands of miles, but most likely a couple hundred miles or less.  I've heard it would've been an 11-day trip by foot, but it took 40 yrs and the generation that came out of Egypt had to be killed off due to their unbelief, complaining, lack of trust.

This leads me to the topic of Faith.  We talk about having enough faith to do something or that a person's faith was great.  What does that mean tangible in someone's life?  From what I have been gathering as we are about 70% through the Bible outloud is that Faith really translates into OBEDIENCE.

God has said in a number of areas in the OT that He values obedience over sacrifice.  Breaking that down more in my analytical mind, I am sometimes pretty darned good with sacrificing, because with sacrifice, there can be some bragging rights, which really is pride standing up.  Obedience requires a laying down and a sense of humility and especially submission, the giving up of your own right.

When you sense in your spirit or intuitively (it's really the Holy Spirit talking with you) that something is right or wrong to do, what do you do?  Ignore it?  That is something I have been so incredibly guilty of doing for a long time, hence, it's resulted in me being in the wilderness for so long.  Those giants continue to haunt and taunt as long as I choose to live in disbelief and disobedience.

So, to increase one's faith, in a nutshell, obey the voice of the Lord.  No questions.  As Nike's infamous slogan, "Just Do It"!