Obedience | Wayne Stiles

Archives For Obedience

Posts by Wayne Stiles related to obedience.

Your Motivation for Living for God

Before I had a family, I had a different car—a black Firebird with T-tops.

Sitting behind those eight cylinders, I could go from zero to too-fast in about five seconds (but, of course, I never did).

Your Motivation for Living for God Your Motivation for Living for God

(Photo by Photodune)

After Cathy and I had our first daughter, I decided I needed a family vehicle. Car seats don’t fit in Firebirds.

So I sold the car.

A few months later, I found a spare set of keys to the Firebird, and I thought: I need to get these to the new owner. Even though I could have kept the keys (as insignificant as it seemed), they really weren’t mine to keep. I had sold them, in a sense, when I sold the car.

Living for God is like finding a spare set of keys to a car you no longer own.

In fact, you have a whole lot of keys that aren’t yours.

Trying to Understand God’s Plan for You

Tough circumstances of life always change our minds about God.

They either tempt us to doubt what He’s promised, or they draw us closer to Him in faith. But we never stay the same.

Trying to Understand Gods Plan for You Trying to Understand Gods Plan for You

(Photo by Photodune)

God’s plan for your life is revealed and tested in times of struggle.

If you’re struggling today, don’t miss the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of God’s plan for you.

Joseph shows you how.

When God Takes Something Away from You

It’s always great when God replaces something painful with something wonderful.

Or when He provides for a need in a context of desperation.

But what about when God takes away something we enjoy—or even something we need? Or when He allows something bad to invade something good?

When God Takes Something Away from You When God Takes Something Away from You

(Photo: by Hariadhi. Own work, GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Can we then say what Job said?

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised. —Job 1:21

During the times when God takes something away from you, it’s easy to feel duped, as if God was some kind of pusher, giving free samples and then removing them after the cravings have their hooks in your heart.

The Lord’s generosity can be misunderstood as cruelty.

Rather than praise God for the time we enjoyed His blessings—we tend to resent His sovereign prerogative to confiscate them.

Here’s some perspective that can help when God takes something away from you that was a blessing.

The Tabernacle at Shiloh—A Promise, Person, Place & Parable

Local schoolchildren ate their lunches across the olive grove from my wife and me.

Like the kids, we came on a field trip to explore ancient Shiloh. Although our lunch was hardly a feast, it reminded me of the reasons the young nation of Israel initially came to this site. They came to worship at the annual feasts before the Tabernacle at Shiloh.

Shiloh area of tabernacle tb051808076 The Tabernacle at Shiloh—A Promise, Person, Place & Parable

(Photo: Area of the Tabernacle at Shiloh. Courtesy of Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Ask most Americans where Shiloh is, and you’ll likely get a blank stare.

Historians may point to a Civil War battle in Hardin County, Tennessee.
Music buffs may start singing the chorus to a Neil Diamond song.

But question someone who knows his or her Bible, and Shiloh means something far more significant.

4 Strategies to Fight the Tug of Temptation and Sin

In my previous post, I wrote about a Christian’s struggle with sin and 4 lies we believe about our sin.

Let’s take it a step further.

Tug of war 4 Strategies to Fight the Tug of Temptation and Sin

(Photo by Tech. Sgt. Dan Neely. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

In addition to taking a defensive mindset against the lies we often believe, we need to take an active approach to sin and temptation.

Here are 4 basic strategies to help you battle the tug of temptation and sin on your heart.

Christians Struggling with Sin and 4 Lies We Believe

Everybody sins. But when we Christians do it, reactions vary.

The world points to us as hypocrites—and often uses our sins as justification for their own. Other Christians tend to view our sins as reasons to suggest we aren’t even saved.

Sunrise at Carolina Beach North Carolina Christians Struggling with Sin and 4 Lies We Believe

(Photo by Bigroger27509. Own work. CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

But the people who offer the most brutal judgment against our sins?

Very often, it’s ourselves.

That’s because Christians struggling with sin tend to believe four lies.

How to Cope When the Will of God is Hard

God had promised a son to Abram. At the same time, God prevented conception.

This is the will of God? Go figure.

Autumn scenery How to Cope When the Will of God is Hard

(Photo by Daniel Skorodjelow (Own work CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFD), via Wikimedia Commons)

This tension eventually proved too much for Abram’s wife, Sarai. It seemed the only thing worse than the barren land she lived in was the barren womb she bore.

So Sarai pointed to Hagar, her Egyptian maid, and told Abram to provide a child through her (see Genesis 16:1–16). The culture allowed for this custom, but it was never the will of God.

The story is anything but ancient. These are decisions we’re tempted to make every day.

But there’s a wiser choice.

When God is Not Fair

Unfair. That’s how it feels.

Remember that childhood Christmas when your sister opened the gift you wanted? Or when your brother got a T-bird for graduation and you got stuck with the family Nova?

Not fair.

(Photo by Rob from Sydney, Australia (CC-BY-2.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Fast forward to today and ask yourself how it hits you when:

A coworker gets a raise but you do more work—or perhaps, his work?
A neighbor decorates her home from an unrestricted budget and you’re gluing the peeling wallpaper back on the wall?
Your job reduces your salary because of the economy, but another business gives raises and bonuses?

We find ourselves kids again pouting around the Christmas tree.

There’s a reason Scripture has to command us not to covet. It’s in our nature. It’s systemic. If we can’t have more than others, at least we want it equal.

But less than others? Uh, no. That’s not fair.

Surrendering Your Will to God in Difficult Times

I have discovered that the most difficult battles in life simply mirror Jesus’ struggle in Gethsemane.

His words to the Father remain the most challenging words we could utter:

“Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” —Luke 22:42

Garden of Gethsemane olive trees tb051906423 Surrendering Your Will to God in Difficult Times

(Photo: Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus surrendered His will. Courtesy of Pictorial Library of Bible Lands.)

Surrendering your will to God in difficult times is often harder than the trial itself.

I have found that my greatest challenges come not from those circumstances that press in upon me, but from the internal struggle to surrender my will to God. I enter Gethsemane daily and have to drag my will to the Father in prayer.

(So do you.)

Kiriath Jearim—A Noteworthy Hill Nobody Notices

It’s a place between important places. Few individuals, if any, journey there directly. Most would miss it, in fact, if they didn’t know to look.

Modern commuters along Israel’s Route 1 motor by the site every day, their minds on their routines. Even tour buses rarely point to the place, much less stop there.

Kiriath Jearim from east tb n032000 Kiriath Jearim—A Noteworthy Hill Nobody Notices

(Photo: Kiriath Jearim, Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands.)

The tourists who do pull over often do so only to snap pictures at the Elvis American Diner (also known as the “Elvis Inn”). A 16-foot-tall bronze likeness of Elvis Presley greets every visitor. Inside the diner, Elvis music is all they hear as they eat their Elvis Burgers. But Elvis isn’t what makes this hill noteworthy.

Around the corner from the offbeat diner, near the modern Israeli Arab village of Abu Gosh, sits the site so few see and even fewer visit—the biblical site of Kiriath Jearim.

You’d never know by looking, but the physical symbol of God’s presence in Israel rested for about a century on this overlooked hill. (Tweet that.)