The blessing of obedience

Exodus 19:5 "Now therefore,if ye will obey my voice indeed,and keep my covenant,then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people:for all the earth is mine:"

When the Lord called Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt, one of the signs of that calling was that he would worship God on the mountain where he was called.But this was just the beginning of his promised blessing for the nation.If the people would obey Him, they would be God's "treasured possession" out of all the nations on the earth.God promised that they would continue to see deliverance from their enemies, along with His miraculous provisions, if they would continue to obey Him.It's all too easy for us to neglect issues of obedience as we get mired in our day to day living.And yet if we haven't been faithful to do what He last told us,how can we expect additional guidance to benifit us?(Saints if we can't be faithful over the little, how can we expect to be trusted with the many.) We need to be diligent to obey.

When we give God lordship over our lives, we are committing to a life of obedience to Him, to His will,and to His ways.How often we tend to renegotiate the terms of our commitment to him as soon as His will cramps our style or dents our pride. How good we are at justifying disobedience, down playing it as we try to draw attention to our attempts at "sacrificial" Christian living. "To obey is better than sacrifice," Samuel told Saul, when Saul tried to invent a better plan to honor God than the one he had been told to follow.We need to be careful not to fall into Saul's mentality of creating a sacrifice that suits us,in lieu of plain obedience to what God has told us. Obedience is not an option,if we want the blessing of God Almighty,and want to enjoy a relationship with him, we must obey and learn to trust that He always have our best interest in His heart.

Just as it did on Mt.Sinia, God's covenant with His people today contains a simple correlation: Obedience brings blessing.God knows how a life works best, and walking in his ways, obeying His direction is the only way that we can expect to experience true and lasting blessings.