{"id":52,"date":"2008-06-14T14:06:31","date_gmt":"2008-06-15T00:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/?p=52"},"modified":"2008-06-14T14:06:31","modified_gmt":"2008-06-15T00:06:31","slug":"obeying-the-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/obeying-the-lord\/","title":{"rendered":"Obeying the Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><!--more--><strong>Living with the end in view involves<br \/>\nObeying the Lord<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Not everyone who says to Me, \u201cLord, Lord,\u201d shall enter the kingdom of heaven,  but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that  day, \u201cLord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your  name, and done many wonders in Your name?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>And then I will declare to them, \u201cI never knew you; depart from Me, you who  practice lawlessness!\u201d (Matt. 7:21\u201323)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>How easy it is for many of us to apply the label, \u201cYes, I\u2019m a Christian.\u201d It is  harder for us to say, \u201cYes, I do the will of our Father in heaven.\u201d It\u2019s easier  to say, \u201cI\u2019m born again\u201d than to say, \u201cI hunger and thirst for righteousness\u201d  (Matt. 5:6). Those in the verse above whom Christ does not know may have taken  up the name of Christian without attempting to be members of His intimate  followers. Are we terrified to join the \u201cinner circle\u201d of those who have laid  down their lives in obedience to a heavenly will?<\/p>\n<p>How does Jesus define a people whom He does not know? As unbelievers? Not  born again? Who had never heard the Gospel preached to them? Jesus in the next  few verses gives His own explanation of how those He did not know differed from  those He acknowledges:<\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\"><em> Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him  to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the  floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for  it was founded on the rock. (Matt. 7:24\u201325)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What is your approach to the Word of God? God is love, and He desires a  relationship with His people who do \u201cthe will of My Father in heaven.\u201d The Lord  is not interested in titles, but relationships. To a person in one group Jesus  will say, \u201cI never knew you\u201d (7:23). To a person in a different group He will  say, \u201cWell done, good and faithful servant\u201d (Matt. 25:21). Both groups will  claim good works, but one works on the basis of obedience.<\/p>\n<p>Do you say Jesus is Lord without counting yourself among those who hear  \u201cthese sayings and does them\u201d? Let not the \u201crain,\u201d \u201cfloods\u201d and \u201cwinds\u201d of your  trials pry you away from the Scriptures, and keep you from obeying what you  read!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Living with the end in view<\/strong> means following the Word in loving obedience.<\/p>\n<p><em>Steps of faith:<\/em><br \/>\nRespond to the Word\u2014to pray, rejoice, humble self, worship, act, speak.<br \/>\nBreak out of dull spiritual habits to hear His voice again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right;\">&#8211;Steve Husting<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Selection from <em>Living  with the End in View, Book 1,<\/em> Steve Husting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[48,59,183,220,236],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jesus-on-judgment","tag-born-again","tag-christian","tag-lord","tag-matt-72123","tag-obedience"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}