Love is a Verb

James 1:22 But don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.

Obedience is a keystone of our spiritual growth, just as practice is essential to improving in any skill or trade you pursue. We must be in the Word of God, reading, meditating on, and applying its truths and principles in our hearts, our minds, and our lives. We must be in communion and conversation with the Spirit of God to touch the heart of God, to learn of Him and receive the strength for the challenges of the day, the power to overcome both large and small obstacles, the encouragement to keep going.

But without obedience, we cannot become the people God has for us to become. If we don't walk out the truths of the Word in the strength of the Spirit as we meet other people, as we talk and work with them, learn of their needs, see their hunger for what God can provide, understand how God wants to touch their lives, then we cannot grow in faith and in love; we are only couch-potatoes watching documentaries till we fall asleep and wake to learn life has passed us by.

Colossians 3
v.23 Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord and not for men, 
v.24 knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.

Being active in God's work is not limited to raising enormous tents and holding city-wide evangelical crusades. It is as simple and basic as offering a cup of cold water to someone who is thirsty. It is holding a door open for someone with their arms full. It is stepping aside to let another go first or yielding right of way to someone who believes they need it more than you. It is a smile and nod of acknowledgement in passing to let the other person know that they are not invisible, unseen, but recognized as someone worth the effort, cared about, and valued. It is offering to pray for someone, then lending a helping hand. It is giving of your time and energy to someone else to meet their needs and demonstrate God's love and compassion.

But obedience is more than action. It is directed action. It is action taken when God says to take it, in the manner He says to take it, as far as He says to take it, and no further. Finding out what His directions are can be challenging to our natural mind. We want to be "doing." It is hard to do "being." We have to be still, we have to quiet ourselves, we have to listen to hear God's voice. Practicing obedient action will tune our spiritual ears to recognize His "voice" when He speaks to our hearts.

To be obedient to God requires humility. Giving up our "rights" to do what we want, releasing our strength by which we have always taken on challenges and seen them through, laying down our abilities, skills, talents in what we are good at, and letting God use someone else, who may not be as "skilled" as we are, even being given a task that we have no skill in, are all part of the training and practice God steps us through so that in humility, weakness, and obedience, we may take part in God's work but not lay claim to any of His glory or praise.

2 Corinthians 12
v.9 But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. 
v.10 So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, catastrophes, persecutions, and in pressures, because of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Father God, when You assign something to us that is too big to handle on our own, we turn to You and wait. It is hard to do, but we know it is best. Your word is true, what You speak to our hearts will happen, You cannot lie, but we must rest in You, cease from creating our own solutions, and wait for You to unlock the door for us. We continue to listen with our hearts as we fill the hallway with praise, knocking on the doors that line both sides of the corridor. You tell us what will happen before it takes place so that we will realize that You are the Lord who knows how things will end up even from before the beginning. You deserve the praise, Father, and we are so glad to give it to You.

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