Obedience In Following His Word

Speaker: Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines

March 05, 2025

in Spritual Growth

No Comments

217

March 02, 2025:
Readings: Jeremiah 7:1-7
1 Corinthians 15:50-58
Luke 6:39-49

Are we ready for Easter? We have failed many times to be what God had intended us to be. Have we come to a point when we are really ready? In Epiphany, He has taught us many things. He has taught us what He has done for us. Today’s lesson challenges us but do we listen, receive and apply it? Can a blind man lead the blind? Many times, we hear things, and we interpret them through human understanding rather than spiritual insights.

When God created everything, it was eternal. He created us in His image and likeness and this will not change. It was written in Thomas’ accounts, that a question was asked of Christ, and His response was, “if you know the beginning, then you’ll know the end.”

A pupil is not greater than his teacher. And yet in our lives, we often think we’re better than those who lead us. During Ash Wednesday, we make a litany of our confessions- our failure as a church for not fulfilling what has been instructed to us. We are to be in charge. We are supposed to cultivate and keep the earth. God breathed life into us and this life is so powerful that we are able to do His tasks. In the Gospel, it says, “why do you call me Lord, and do not do what I say?” God gave Adam all the power and the life. There was only one restriction, which was, not to touch the tree in the center, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Adam and Eve disobeyed, the whole world was turned over to the enemy. The importance of obedience, and the consequences thereof when we do not obey. We say we believe in the Lord. But do we really follow His word? Faith without obedience or works is dead.

But God loved us so much He sent His only Son to not only forgive us and take away our sins but to restore us back to His image and likeness. The Lord is our strength. Our strength goes beyond the physical because our strength is in Christ. We have watered down the truth to our own human thinking. That’s what is happening today because there is so much corruption. There is war and unrest. We have caused these things to happen due to our disobedience. When we do not feed the hungry, when we do not clothe the naked. We are not doing what God wants us to be doing. When we put other things before Him, we are disobeying. We have become silent instead.

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?’” One of the greatest violations is not following the Sabbath. When one day is set aside for you to worship the Lord in church but instead, we see all the malls and establishments open. God wants us to plan in the life of Christ and not be planning on what we would do when we come to church on Sundays. We must make Him number one in our lives.