Results or Obedience

If you're a results driven person you may find that life can be very frustrating when your labor doesn't bring the desired results.  When you have done all you can do yet you have not met your goals most likely the word

FAILURE

is bouncing around your head.

Let me set you free.

God is not looking for results of your work He is looking for your obedience.

Often times obedience to God does not bring what we would call success.

Let's take Jeremiah for instance.

Called at a young age to be God's prophet he had to call an entire nation to repentance.

While others were speaking positive words of victory and peace Jeremiah was speaking death and enslavement.  The judgement of God.

So yeah, he wasn't too popular.

As a matter of fact Jeremiah was persecuted and hated for speaking what God gave him to say.  Not exactly the results he was probably hoping for.

If it was me I would have thought that as I preached the anointing would be so strong that the everyone within the sound of my voice would begin to wail, rend there clothing, and throw dirt on their heads as they fell upon their knees in repentance.

Perhaps Jeremiah felt the same.  But, instead of repenting, Israel turned a deaf ear.

The end result was that Israel was overthrown by their enemies and taken into captivity to Babylon.  Those who refused to be enslaved were killed.

Our obedience to God does not always have a happy ending but it does facilitate the will of God.  It does bring a reward.

Jeremiah and his scribe were blessed with their freedom while Israel was being taken to Babylon as slaves.  Yet I imagine even this was bitter sweet as God's servants surveyed the burnt ruin all around them.  Jerusalem was destroyed....desolate.

If we look for the results in our obedience to God we will be disappointed.

BUT

If we, like Jesus, just seek to obey the will of the Father we will have peace knowing we simply did

what we were commanded to do. 

...you shall go to all to whom I send you,
And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces,For I am with you to deliver you,” says the Lord.  Jer 1:7-8