Obedience matures us and deepens our relationship with Him

This is the last devo in this series from Pastor’s sermon on Meeting Mary.  It’s a little late getting out but better late than never!

When we have the desire to obey God out of love for Him, we begin to draw closer to Him.  We begin to thirst for God more, to drink deep of Him.  This can’t come from pastors and teachers alone.  You can’t rely on them completely.  We have to seek Him out for ourselves.  We have to keep up with meeting with Him and seek Him out daily.  James writes,

 James 4:7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 

James 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Just because we are obedient to Jesus knocking on our hearts, and we develop a confidence in Him, doesn’t mean we won’t face temptation.  When the servants filled the pots with water, they filled them to the brim.  They left room for nothing else.  In order for us to live a life that God desires, we have to be filled to the brim with Him so that there’s no room for anything else to creep in.

Satan cannot attack God directly.  So he goes after what God loved enough to give us His only Son – you and I.  Satan is relentless and will do everything he can, from the time you gave your heart to Christ till the day you breath your last breath, to separate you from God through temptations.  He desires nothing less than to hurt God and he can do that through attacking you and getting you to submit to him.

But when we submit to God, when we are obedient to God, He gives us the power to resist the devil and the devil has to flee from us.  This process happens over and over.  The devil never gives up.  But each time we resist, each time we are obedient to the Father, we deepen our relationship with Him.  We draw ourselves closer to Him and as a result, He draws closer to us.

I guess I like to look at each time I’m obedient to Him as a victory.  And when there’s a victory, there’s usually a celebration!  So I worship God in those moments!  For me, it sort of seals the deal for me!  Worship reminds me of how big God is and of His strength to fully keep me and guide me into godly way of living.

In the account of Jesus turning the water into wine, He shows that He is the source of life.  Only the Son of God can transform like He can.  Look at verse 10 again.

John 2:10  “Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now. 

It was tradition to serve the good wine first, then the lower quality later.  In tasting this wine, the headwaiter tastes one of the freshest sweetest wines he has probably ever put his mouth to.  But this was no ordinary wine.  It didn’t come from the normal process of growing grape vines, juiced and fermented.  Jesus transformed nothing into something incredible!

He does the same with us.  When we are obedient to Him, we allow Him to transform us into something sweeter than we could ever be on our own, something so fresh that the world has no recourse but to take notice that we are different.

Nothing is sweeter or more refreshing than Jesus.  And that makes me want to be obedient to Him!