The Protection And Blessings Of Obedience
Anyone who knows me or talks to me much at all knows that my favorite scripture verse is Romans 8:28 (NKJV), which says And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. I’ve claimed that verse as my favorite for many years now, and even though many other verses have had significant impact on my life recently, the one I ALWAYS fall back on is Romans 8:28, so I was really excited when that’s what the Lord put on my heart to write about this morning. But it’s taken a totally different direction than I expected, because the Lord changed my focus from not worrying about anything no matter what happens to one of obedience. Instead of thinking that no matter what happens, it will work out for my good if I love the Lord and am obedient, I now understand that obedience is a demonstration of my love and faith in the Lord, which means I can trust God to work ALL things together for my good. Maybe that seems like an insignificant distinction, but it’s not.
In John 15:5, Jesus told us “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. And John 14:23 says Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. And in John 10, we see:
25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me,
26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.
27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.
29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
30 I and the Father are one.” It’s clear from these verses that when we love the Lord, we are obedient to what His word teaches, and He lives with us and protects us…that no one and nothing can snatch us out of His hand. The Bible reveals the heart of a shepherd and how ferociously he protects his flock in 1 Samuel 17:34-35, which says But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.
In the above verses, Jesus uses the words “IF“ we “remain” in Him and “apart” from Him, so it’s very important to understand what He meant by that since He said we couldn’t be “snatched” from His hand.. However, Proverbs 27:8 says Like a bird that strays from its nest is a man who strays from his home. Jesus said if we love Him, we obey His teachings, and He and the Father come and make their home with us. Obviously, when we are disobedient, we stray from our home with Him, and out of the nest and protection provided by the loving shelter of His wing, as so beautifully illustrated in Deuteronomy 32:10-11, which says “He found them in a desert land, in an empty, howling wasteland. He surrounded them and watched over them; he guarded them as his most precious possession. Like an eagle that rouses her chicks and hovers over her young, so he spread his wings to take them in and carried them aloft on his pinions. What an awesome picture of salvation! But in stark contrast, Jeremiah 2:5 reveals the dangers of straying from the Lord with This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. And Proverbs 21:16 warns A man who strays from the path of understanding comes to rest in the company of the dead. And Hosea 7:13 says Woe to them, because they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, because they have rebelled against me! I long to redeem them but they speak lies against me. Fortunately, Proverbs 19:27 shows us how to avoid straying, because it says Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. So we avoid straying by staying in the word.
Even when we stray, the Lord loves us so much that He will come after us to bring us back into the flock and into the shelter of His wing, as we see in Matthew 18:
12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?
13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.
14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost. How wonderful it is that the Lord will turn even our disobedience, which Satan intended for evil, into something good, as we see in this awesome portrait of restoration in Hosea 2 (NLT)!
The GOOD news is that we do have the Lord’s promise that He will work ALL things together for our good when we love Him and are living our lives in accordance with His purpose, in which case we have the assurance that NO MATTER what is going on in our lives, it is happening exactly as it has to happen for God’s perfect plan for us to be perfected. And then even when we stray away and are not acting in obedience, HE will draw us back, and when we return to Him and put Him first in our lives with a genuine attitude of repentance, He WILL work even our disobedience to our good! However, if we’re wise, we won’t make the mistake of straying in the first place! So PRAISE THE LORD that even though His blessings and protection are all conditional, His Love is unconditional!