Sunday, June 12, 2011

obedience, immediately

hello, loves!

ok, this will be short, but i wanted to pop in and tell you what God just showed me in Matthew 2.

Basically, it's the story of the wise men following the star to visit baby Jesus. Along the way, the wise men bumped into King Herod, and Herod told them to come back when they finished visiting with Jesus to give him the location of Jesus so that he can go and worship Jesus as well. As you and I both know, that was a lie. Herod was afraid of a Jew coming into power; what he really wanted was to know where Jesus was so he could kill him. But, that wasn't in God's plan, you see. God intervened and told the wise men not to go back to Herod. Then God gave Joseph (Jesus' earthly father) a warning of Herod in a dream.

(Here's where the Holy Spirit showed me something cool.)

In the NLT version, verses 13 & 14 say this:

After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother,



The angel told Joseph that Herod was going to search for the child to kill him. Not that he was searching. Technically, Joseph could've slept a little longer without worrying. I mean, Herod may not have even realized that the wise men weren't coming back. But what did Joseph do??
It says that that night Joseph got up and left.  How inconvenient!

But what the Holy Spirit showed me was that despite what my surroundings are telling me, obey God immediately. I once heard someone say that delayed obedience is disobedience. It's so true!
Joseph definitely could've sat back and waited for an obvious sign of Herod's persual. But instead, he heeded what God was telling him and reacted immediately, knowing that what was becoming endangered (Jesus) was too precious to risk.

And that brings me to this: Your life is precious too. You only get one of them. And the purpose of your life is to reflect the Creator and bring him glory, all while you love the world.

The decisions we make and the amount of time it takes for us to make them can affect us for the rest of our lives.

Just think of what could have happened if Joseph had "delayed his obedience".



Those are just some thoughts! I'll go now, because it's late, and I'm tired. :)

I love you all!
Happy Sunday!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is SO good Shelby! God has been speaking this to me as well. This is what I've got to do in order to get to Hillsong. Thank you so much for sharing!!