3RD NOVEMBER
Daniel 3:16-18
“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
Faith and obedience to God are inseparable!
If you are trusting God, you are also obeying him; if you are not obeying God, then there is a problem with your faith. When you get frustrated with your spiritual life because there’s an area of sin that you can’t seem to overcome and you don’t know why obedience is such a problem to you, you can be sure that it finds its root in unbelief. There is something that God has said that you do not believe.
Faith leads to obedience. You follow God because you trust him. And in a beautiful upward spiritual spiral, obedience also leads to faith! When you step out to obey God, you inevitably find that God responds to your obedience with his faithfulness. Your experience of God’s dependability then leads you to greater faith and greater obedience. And so your faith continues to grow.
Sometimes it’s a challenge to obey God’s leading. I don’t imagine that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego relished the thought of being thrown into the fiery furnace. But their unconditional obedience is an example for us to follow.
MAKE IT PERSONAL
Do you agree with the following statement? “Obedience is a sign of faith; disobedience is the result of unbelief”