Obedience and Service

Monday 15 August
READ: Job 36: 11
MORE LESSON: Luke 12: 43- 48

Obedience and service are a twin-set of virtues that will take a man to the high places of life. Prosperity in the Kingdom is linked to obedience and service. Isa. 1: 19 says, If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. This scripture points to us the power of obedience to the ways of God in making a man prosperous. As Job also declared, If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures: Job 36:11.
Psa. 23 shows the prosperity that follows a man when God is his shepherd. Being a sheep connotes obedience; sheep follow the shepherd's leading. When you obey the words of the Great Shepherd, you will move forward into prosperity. Success and progress is sure when you walk in covenant with God. A covenant is an agreement between two or more parties where each party has terms and conditions to obey. As a covenant child of God, you have to obey the terms that are revealed in His Word, only then is your success guaranteed.
Disobedience is terrible; it causes stagnation in life. In Jer. 7: 23 – 24, the Lord warned, I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward (NIV). Retrogression, stagnancy and hardship characterise a life of disobedience to God.
Psa. 89:20-21 shows the blessing of serving God, I have found David my servant; with my sacred oil I have anointed him. My hand will sustain him; surely my arm will strengthen him (NIV). David was a servant and that was why God committed Himself to exalting him. When you serve God with all your might, you are on the pathway to the high places of life.
Service must be accompanied by obedience. There are some people that want to serve God but on their own terms and to suit their own methods. It is not enough to be a servant of God or a worker in His vineyard, you must be a servant that obeys. Luke 12: 47 says that a servant who knows his master's will, and does not do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. This refers to a man who was serving quite all right but he was not doing so according to the master's will. So he still was beaten with many stripes. Today as you purpose to serve God with all your ability and obey His instructions with all your heart, you will increase in every area of life, in Jesus’ name.

PRAYER/ACTION
* Father, as I obey and serve You, I shall spend my days in prosperity and my years in pleasure, in Jesus’ name.
* Father, you found David, find me and anoint me with Your Holy oil for Your work and cause Your hand to sustain me, in Jesus’ name.

TODAY'S PROPHETIC PRAYER
This new week, I shall not be a victim in any battle, I shall win and walk tall, in the name of Jesus.