THE ROUTE TO VICTORY

"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land" (Isaiah 1:19). 

Obedience to God is the key to victory in life. This is made consistently and abundantly clear in all Scripture. It is the indisputable weapon for neutralizing problems. Once you can pay the price of obedience, you will gain the prize, the blessings that God has prepared for you. 

Obedience ensures that you triumph over any of life's adversities. As our Scripture passage for further reading details, obedience puts you above situations and circumstances in an uncommon way. For example, you can combat sickness, poverty, satanic oppression and other challenges of life by simply committing yourself to obeying God in all things. Let me illustrate some of the statements above with some examples from the Bible on how God's people triumphed by being obedient to divine instructions. 

There was a famine in the days of Isaac. That was a period of economic depression and financial crisis. Then God gave Isaac instructions on what to do. His obedience to those instructions rescued him from that economic mess. Isaac demonstrates to us that you have to fight famine and recession with obedience - obedience to divine instructions. If you will obey God, you can survive and blossom in the midst of this recession that is currently ravaging most parts of the world. It was exactly the same thing that happened with the widow of Zarephath. In her case, the famine was so bad, and she was down to her last meal. Death was imminent for her and her son. Then God's word came to her through the prophet Elijah, an instruction on what she should do. Carrying out God's instruction was tough for her, but she did it anyway and her story changed. 

The healing of Naaman the Syrian army general from the incurable disease of leprosy was the result of his obedience to the word of faith. God instructed him on what to do through Elisha the prophet. Although he was initially hesitant because the divine instruction seemed stupid to him, he eventually obeyed and a remarkable healing took place in his life. Very many of the healings that took place in the New Testament during the ministry of Jesus Christ and the apostolic era happened in a similar manner. A word of instruction would come forth and obedience to such words by those who needed deliverance produced their healing. 

An implication of all the above is that hearing God in time of trouble, be it economic recession, health challenge, marital crisis, or what have you is a critical grace you must covet. It is the word of God that contains the solution to human issues. Consistent access to God's word is fundamental to having solutions on the earth. While it is good, important and very helpful to be able to hear God in a very direct and specific way, I always counsel that we should first learn to hear Him in the Scriptures - the written word of God. All the things that are written are for our examples and for our admonition (1 Corinthians 10:11). If you cannot hear God in the written word, you will not hear His spoken word. When you apply yourself to the Scriptures day by day, the picture of the solution you need will become clearer by the day. 

I should also warn you that God's instructions are almost always contrary to the natural wisdom of man. In fact, the Bible says that the wisdom of man is foolishness before God and God's foolishness (if there can be anything so-called) is infinitely wiser than the best of human wisdom. God uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise and the weak things of this world to confound the strong. His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. Thus, often times, we have to die to our own wisdom in order to accommodate God's instructions. And when we do, deliverance comes so cheap. 

Friends, if you are willing to obey God, you will eat the good of the land and the good in the land. May the Lord give us grace to magnify His words above human wisdom and to value His instructions above human precepts.