To Do-ers List: Back to School

Day 6: Obey the Rules!

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey — whether slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? Roman 6:16

Slave to Fear

When I was a little girl, I was embarrassed by something that happened in church one Sunday. It wasn’t a big deal, but in my mind, I blew it up to big proportions until I feared that it would happen again. The fear grew out of control until I dreaded going to church. Unfortunately, fear became my go-to emotion in my life. When I finally conquered the fear from the original occurrence, another one quickly replaced it. The process of how I dealt with difficulties in my life was broken, and it was making me a slave to fear, which is actually a sin!

Call It What It Is

I did not realize that this now-established pattern in my life was a sin. And I certainly didn’t realize that I was “obeying” it, but I was. It controlled many aspects of my life because I would go to great lengths to avoid the thing that created fear. And this was ever changing, ever growing; the talons of fear were firmly clasped around my throat, strangling the life out of me.

It wasn’t until I gave my life to Christ that I learned to be obedient to Him and the truth of His word, and that is what bought me my freedom. It was a slow process because I had years of learned wrong behaviors. But as the Holy Spirit got a hold of my life, I switched my allegiance to the Life Giver, and He set me free.

How did He do this? Here’s some of the things that helped.

• Attending church and absorbing the sermons
• Reading the Bible for myself
• Memorizing scripture that applied to my situation and repeating them aloud many times, speaking them into the situation
• Praying and identifying another trusted person to pray for me
• Changing my thinking from focusing on lies to truth
• Listening to biblical teaching on fear
• Talking to those wiser than me

One thing I realized was that

As we have already mentioned previously in this study, spending time with Jesus studying his word are crucial elements to becoming doers of the word. Mary told me about a little book called A Gospel Primer for Christians, Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love by Milton Vincent that really helps the reader to rehearse who you are in Christ and the righteousness that is now yours. It may help you to firmly plant these truths in your mind and heart too. Here is a link to it on CBD. (OnlyByPrayer is an affiliate of CBD, so if you purchase this book from this link, we will receive a small profit from that).

A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love By Milton Vincent / Focus PublishingTo the Christians in Rome, the Apostle Paul wrote, “I am eager to preach the gospel to you who are at Rome” (Romans 1:15). Evidently, Christians need to hear the gospel even after conversion. A Gospel Primer for Christians is designed to do just that. Use this book to preach the gospel to yourself on a daily basis, and be amazed at the difference it can make in your life!

 

For Today

Today let’s identify if there are any areas of our lives where we are not obeying Jesus. Is there something that you need to let go of or give up? Is there an area that you’ve been trying to retain control of? Perhaps you’re not even aware of it, as I was not. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to identify it and for the grace to hand it over. Then come up with a plan of how you will walk in freedom. List one or two things that you can do today to work for or maintain your freedom by obeying Jesus’ rules.

School is in session. Obey the rules!

 

Previous Sessions of To Do-ers List, Back to School:

Day 1: New Clothes

Day 2: The Book

Day 3: Pack a Lunch

Day 4: Listen to The Teacher

Day 5: Study!