Proven Obedience

If you witness how God consistently deals with His servants, you will find that one of the premium requirements that God establishes for those He's going to use in His Kingdom Advancement, is obedience. 

The God we serve is a God of obedience. If you can't be obedient to God, you can't work with God. Let me say it again, if you can't be obedient to God, you can't work with God. Now, interestingly enough, you can work for God, but you can't work with God. There is a difference. And the difference is the level for which God chooses to work, with and through you. If you want to be an instrument of Kingdom advancement and establishment in this next season, it's going to take more than your gift and your anointing, it's going to require obedience.

You'll notice that when God first "hired" the first king of Israel, Saul, he didn't stay in the office long. The reason why is because he couldn't be Obedient. When God gave him a direct command through the prophet Samuel (1Samuel 15), Saul was negligent in doing all that God had commanded him to do. For the record Saints, partial obedience is disobedience. And once God saw that Saul was not going to be implicitly obedient to Him as His Master and King, consequently, he got fired as the king of Israel. 

This is the same thing that happened to Adam in the Garden of Eden. We can talk about Eve all we like, but the Covenant of being the Federal Representative of humanity was made with Adam, not Eve (Romans 5). And as a son of God and the ruler of the earth (Genesis 1), Adam was expected to be obedient, regardless of what his wife said. The placement of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden was a Test. Please understand saints, God is going to test you. He's not going to tempt you, but He is going to Test you. Why? Because He wants to see if you are going to be Obedient. Of course He already knows, but the issue for us as His creation, is the issue of proven obedience. And in both cases, with Saul and with Adam, because of their refusal, not inability, to obey the Sovereign God, they abdicated the authority that GOD had bestowed upon them.

But not everybody was disobedient. When God told Abraham to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him to Him, Abraham was Obedient (Genesis 22). One of the greatest examples of Obedience was Jesus in the Wilderness. Remember, before Jesus went into the Wilderness to be tempted of the devil, He had just been baptized by John the Baptist. This was more than just a baptism, this was Jesus' official Inauguration into the Office of the Son of God. Yes He had been the Son of God since His birth, and acknowledged it publicly at the age of 12 years old (Luke 2). But when the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove, and the Father publicly voiced His Divine approval of His Son, this is when Jesus officially began to function in the Office as the Son of Man and the Son of God (the official Office Adam maintained before the Fall, 1Corinthians 15). However, even with being Inaugurated in this Office by the Father, He still had to demonstrate proven obedience.

But of course, the greatest act of obedience was Jesus' Death on the Cross. After having lived a sinless life for 33 years. After demonstrating the most spectacular ministry the world has ever seen, He then had to die, brutally, for a crime that He did not commit. And He did this primarily, because of His ultimate commitment to demonstrate proven obedience to the Father. 

A prophet of God said to me a couple of years ago, a true son is obedient unto death. Please saints, when God promotes you, and establishes you, and blesses you in this next season, think it not strange that He allows some "interesting" circumstances to come your way that will tempt you and try your faith (James 1). You haven't done anything wrong, and God has not "left you."  He's simply setting the stage to test you, for proven obedience.