“If you are willing and obey, you will eat the best of the land.” Isaiah 1:19.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Willing obedience, a free person’s obedience, is beautiful before Me because it shows a humble, teachable heart that is open to healing, youth renewal, prosperity, and the Blessing I so desire to give you. It shows love and trust that what I tell you to do is for your good, for your freedom from harm, and for your glory. Willing obedience to My Word is not really for Me but for you, for your good, for My Word is the formula for success. You may call it obedience but you could also call it “ following instructions for skill in living a victorious life,” “self-improvement to reach your goals,” “care free living,” and you could also call it imitating Me, which means when someone sees you in action they see Me—My goodness, My power, and My presence, which is My glory.
And what is the result of living your life in accordance with My Word? Just what I told the Israelites the result would be: you would live your days as days of Heaven upon the earth.
You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as days of Heaven upon the earth. Deuteronomy 11:18-21.
There are those that say that you are under grace now and obedience is of the law and under grace you are redeemed from the curse and thus are very loose about living the commandments. They are misled because they fail to understand Scripture and My power. But primarily they do not understand grace.
Grace is My divine life flowing into you. Yes, in Christ I have made you as if you never sinned but it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And grace teaches you to live godly from the inside out. When you were born again by faith in Jesus, My Word, your Lord and Savior, you became a new creation in Him. Your spirit came alive to Me and dead to sin, so sin no longer is your master.
Now My Holy Spirit dwells in your spirit making you My temple and making you Holy. And holiness is never comfortable with sin. Sin is now against your nature, for I have rescued you from the realm of darkness into the Kingdom of light, the Kingdom of My Beloved Son. He is the Light of the World, and NO follower of His ever walks in darkness but has the light of life. And the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth.
Living under grace gives you a higher standard than the law for obedience because I have empowered you to live at an entirely new level of life. In His sermon on the mount My Son is teaching how to live under grace, I do not just look at outer actions but at what is in your thoughts and what words you are speaking. It is life from the inside out. No longer like the Law from the outside in.
And when you start walking in accordance with the new life and calling you have received, your life produces the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit will manifest in you at various times as well.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23.
Imitate Me as My dear children and walk in love. Love exhorts, edifies and encourages others but it does no harm to others. Love fulfills the Law.
Jesus came as My manifested love. In Him, My kindness and grace appeared towards all people, not only to redeem you but also to save you from sin.
“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He Himself will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:20-21.
Sin is a cruel master. I call it the slavery of sin and death for the wages of sin is death and it still is. Sin will not renew your youth but grace will. And even if sin has abounded in you, once you receive the abundance of grace, grace superabounds beyond it, making you a prisoner of righteousness. And established in righteousness you are far from oppression. Sin is oppression, it is the devil taking you captive to do his will. And he only comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
Obedience is not just something you do when everything is going well in your life but also when you are suffering trials and opposition, even when it is through a lack of skill on your part that they happen.
When tests come it does not mean your faith is not working. When the devil sees you are learning My Word and desiring to be obedient to it, he comes to test and try you to make you back off from advancing and getting more revelation. He knows if you find out your authority in Christ he cannot take you captive and stop you from being fruitful and taking souls away from him for the Kingdom of Light.
That is what My Son was showing you in the parable of the sower sowing seed on various kinds of soil. The devil was continually trying to steal the Word away from those who received it. And once it planted ,he had to work hard to choke it off, scorch it out, and lure it out. But with three of the types of hearts it planted in he was successful in pulling it out.
Jesus told you that you would have trials in this life, He certainly had many. He told you that those who opposed Him would also oppose you and that you would suffer persecution for being His followers. The more committed you are to following Jesus, the more Satan will oppose and persecute you. But this should not surprise you. I do not want you to be ignorant of his tactics.
But the good news is that Jesus already defeated the devil and brought him to naught. So know whatever fiery ordeal he is shooting at you that it is coming from a defeated foe and you already have the victory in Christ Jesus your Lord.
The proper response to opposition and persecution is to rejoice. Jesus told you that:
Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:11-12.
Whatever you are going through, and as long as the devil is not chained up in the abyss there will be trials from within and without, you must be obedient to My Word if you want days of Heaven on earth and NOT MEDITATE ON IT and fret about it in worry and fear. Cast the care of it on Me, because I care for you and just rejoice in Me that I am taking care of it for you and with you. I will not let you be ashamed. No matter what you did or the other did, Jesus took your fault and I will take care of you.
Be an overcomer. I have equipped you with everything you need to be that. But above all you have My Word and I sent My Word to heal you and DELIVER you from all your destructions (pits).
Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:21-22.
I was always with Jesus because He always did what pleased Me. Paul said his one desire in life and death was to please Me. And what pleases Me? Faith. Hebrews 11:6. Faith in My goodness, faith in My love, faith in My care, and faith that I will get you through every trial and fiery ordeal you find yourself in.
Obedience is better than sacrifice because obedience does whatever I tell you to do, even to rejoicing in Me always, even in the darkest times.
A cheerful heart is a good medicine but a depressed spirit dries up the bones.
A cheerful heart is an obedient heart. And it will bring youth renewal.
I love you. You are Mine if you will just put yourself in My hands I can take care of everything for you. If you are willing and obey, you are wise, for you will have the best of the land.
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 1 Peter 4:12-13.