Have you ever sensed God telling you to do something and your response was total amazement that God was telling you to do that? You wanted to ask, “Are you talking to me?”
In Genesis 12:1 God tells Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s house, and go to the land I will show you.”
God not only tells Abram to leave his
country
friends
family.
He tells Abram to going in a direction, and when he gets where God wants him to be, He will tell him. Abram didn’t know the exact location of the place God wanted him to be. He only understood that God wanted him to leave where he was and go to where God wanted him.
When God directs Moses to take the people out of Egypt, He uses a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to direct them step by step along their journey. God didn’t give a road map of their entire journey at the beginning.
Remember we are called to follow Jesus. We are to be followers.
God tells Abram that if he will obey Him and let God lead him to where God wants him to be, God will:
Make Abram a great nation
Bless Abram
Make Abram’s name great
Bless those who bless Abram and curse those who curse Abram
Bless all the people on earth through Abram.
Genesis 12:4 says, “So Abram left as the Lord had told him.”
That is obedience to God. Notice that verse 4 also mentions that Abram was 75 years old when this occurred. Abram was not some young man just starting out. He was a man with family (wife, nephew), a man with a large household (servants), and a man with a lot of property.
There are three steps in following God as we see in the life of Abram.
First, there is listening.
We have to listen to what God is saying to us.
For us to listen to God, we have to put ourselves in a position to listen.
The position that allows us to best listen to God is humbled, submitted, and quiet.
Humbled is an act of the mind. I understand that God is the One in control, not me.
Submitted is an act of the will or spirit. I consciously put my life in God’s control.
Quiet is an act of the body. I carve out time to spend with God, listen to what He has to say.
Listening to God involves recognizing.
We have to recognize that it is God who is speaking.
In John 10:4 we are told that Jesus’ sheep know His voice. The Bible is Jesus’ voice. He may also help us to hear His voice in other ways. But anything that does not agree with God’s Word is not the voice of Jesus. We need to do what John 10:5 says that the Jesus’ sheep do when they hear a stranger’s voice, “they run away from the voice of the stranger.”
Listening to God involves knowing.
We have to know what God is saying.
God does not hide His will in hidden messages or images.
Exodus 3:9-10
And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring My people the Israelites out of
Egypt.
Moses understood what God wanted him to do. That is why Moses came up with so many excuses not to do it. This was also true of Noah, Abraham, Joseph, David, Daniel, many, many others.
Second, there is preparation.
We have to be prepared to do what God tells us to do.
We have to be prepared spiritually.
Luke 1:38
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”
Mary was young, but she was spiritually prepared to do what God told her to do.
We have to be prepared physically.
We should not be in a physical situation that would stop or hinder us from following God anywhere or doing anything He directs to do.
Debt or comfort or personal preferences or even family should not hinder or stop us from following God’s will.
I recall a time in my life when I was considering a church position and when I found out what the salary would be, my response was, “I can’t afford to live on that salary.” It wasn’t that the salary was bad; it was that I was so in debt that I couldn’t live on the amount that the church was offering.
When we let anything other than God’s will determine what we do, we are letting that thing control us. God doesn’t want any rivals for our hearts.
So lets us be like the Boy Scouts: Always Prepared.
Third, there is obedience.
We can listen.
We can know it’s God speaking.
We can know what God is saying.
We can be prepared to do what God says.
But if we don’t obey - those things mean nothing.
1 Samuel 15:22
Samuel replied, “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”
It is not about making huge sacrifices occasionally.
It is about everyday obedience.
John 14:23
If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teachings. My Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.
Obedience is what shows Jesus and others that we really do love Him.
Obedience is what allows us to experience the presence of God in our lives.
Abram listened. He heard God’s voice. He knew it was God.
Abram was prepared. He had his life in position that he could do what God was telling him to do.
Abram obeyed. He left where he was to go where God wanted him.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about listening to God.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about being prepared to do what God tells us to do.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about obeying God.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about following God.
God will tell you to do something that will cause you to say to Him, “Are You talking to me?” He will then tell you that, yes, He is talking to you. Then you have the great privilege of letting God take you to a new place in your relationship with Him.
This place will be strange.
This place will be risky.
This new place will be scary.
This place will be out of your comfort zone.
This place will cause you to totally depend on Jesus.
This place will be an exciting adventure with Jesus.
Letting Jesus Lead the Way, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
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