The Bottom Line

Have you ever been guilty of disobedience? Did your parents or a teacher ever tell you to do something and you didn’t do it? Maybe you just didn’t want to do it or thought you had more important things to do.

Disobedience to those who have God-given authority over us is a serious thing. “So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished” (Romans 13:2) This is a really bad situation because it’s actually disobedience to God. In fact, disobedience to God is the definition of sin. Sin is the root cause of all the pain, suffering, and death in the world. “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23). But physical death will not be the end of it — there is still hell to pay in eternity. We need to realize how serious disobedience (sin) is.

Since everyone has sinned and is under the curse of sin, God tells us in the Bible how He sent Jesus to die as a sacrifice for sin. We can be forgiven of our sins if we will trust what Jesus did and submit to His authority. It’s a wonderful experience to be out from under the curse and burden of sin and death! We will still die physically, but go to a heavenly home in eternity.

What does God want us to do after we are free from the curse of sin? He wants us to live a life of obedience to His voice and do what He teaches us through the Bible. Did you know that obedience is the highest form of worship we can give God? He doesn’t care as much for our praise songs as He does for our obedience. Partial obedience is not obedience at all (read the account of King Saul in 1 Samuel 15). God knows we’re not able to obey Him using our own willpower. We’re too weak and our old habits are too strong for us to break. So He promised to give us His Holy Spirit to live in our spirits to help us. If we’ll cooperate with Him, together with the Holy Spirit, we can be obedient to God.

The longer we live in obedience the more we understand God and how to walk with Him. We learn His priorities, how to hear His voice, how to pray and understand His Word. You will learn that His first priority is not our comfort. He is not our genie in a bottle. We are His servants in His kingdom. We’re to be doers of His commands to accomplish His will on earth. With that perspective, we see that many of our prayers are selfish, so we shouldn’t wonder why they’re not answered. “And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure” (James 4:3). 

When we’re confronted with the truth, there are two ways we can respond. We can become angry and reject it, or we can become humble and repent. Repentance will raise us to a higher level of godly character.

The Bottom Line: Make obedience your highest worship to God every day.

Pastor Jimmy Tucker

Diamond Community Church

On The Go

“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:15

Lois is a secretary. She was recently laid off. She worked for a business that shut down because the government said it was “nonessential.” Because she lost her job, she can barely make ends meet. Her husband left her. She has a son in rebellion. Her life is spinning out of control. She cries out for help. We don’t hear.

Stan works in a local factory. Even though he has a job and is surrounded by people, he feels alone. The mask that his employer requires him to wear makes him feel even more isolated. He longs for a friend. We are deaf to his cries.

Ed owns a gas station in town. His wife died last month. Because of COVID-19, the family couldn’t even have a funeral. Ed has struggled with depression since his wife passed away. His eyes echo his loneliness, but we don’t see. He misses her listening ear. If only there were someone who would talk to him, but our ears are closed.

Hattie lives in a local assisted care facility. She has lived through so much in her eighty-five years, but she has never seen anything like what is happening in the world today. For the past two months, she has felt like a prisoner. Hattie has been locked away in her room. Even her meals are brought to her. The only people she sees are the nurses and orderlies that come by two or three times a day. At first, a few family members and some friends from church called to check on her, but those calls have stopped. Secretly, Hattie longs for death, but we don’t care.

We saw our neighbor, Lois, sitting on her porch across the street, but we didn’t say, “Hello.” We saw Stan at work, but because of “social distancing,” we didn’t even speak. We filled up the car at Ed’s gas station, but we were in too much of a hurry to chat. Hattie is our grandmother, but who has time to call. We had to hurry home to have the “perfect” ending to our self-centered day. So, we kick back in our chair with a bag of Doritos and binge-watch “Tiger King” on Netflix as we pat ourselves on the back for “staying home and staying safe.”

Jesus told us to, “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to everyone.” However, we are in such a hurry to “go,” that we miss the very ones whom God brings into our path. All around us there are hurting people who are longing for a “cup of cold water” in Jesus name.

You see, this world has a problem that is much worse than the coronavirus. This world has a sickness called sin. Sin has a one-hundred-percent mortality rate. Each of us has this disease and it is killing us. However, there is a cure. God was “socially isolated” in heaven where there was no sickness, but He came to earth in the Person of Jesus Christ. Jesus entered a pandemic – a sin-sick world. He was crucified and died on an old rugged cross. His dead body was buried, but three days and nights later, Jesus rose from the dead. And the cure for sin-sickness is the gospel – the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The point is: If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are to “go” and share the gospel, but you don’t have to be a missionary overseas. Open your eyes to the people God has put in your path. Speak to your neighbor. Be a friend to that guy at work. Pay attention to the man behind the counter. Call your grandma.

You could be the person God uses to change a life, forever.

James Collins is the pastor of Fort Scott’s First Southern Baptist Church. For more information on his ministry, go to the website www.fortscottfsbc.com.