Session 5 - OBEY ANYWAYS

  Over the last four sessions we have been coming to face to face with the reality that the life of following Jesus involves a tension.  It's the pressure of feelings pushing against the purposes of our faith.  It's what we see in our circumstances versus the unseen purposes of God being worked out in the midst of those circumstances.  It's culture trying to tell us what a man is and how he should act and Jesus' example and call upon our lives to be like him.  In no area of spiritual life is this battle more  deeply felt than in the area of our WILL versus God's WILL in a moment.  Crossing the line into relationship with Jesus involves new choices to love God and love people and sometimes those choices are HARD! Maybe that is exactly where you are at right now with a relationship, a temptation, a work situation, or a clear moral dilemma.  Like Jesus in the Garden before He went to the cross, we will all have times when we confront God's will and not want to do it.  But also like Jesus, every man of God will be called to say what Jesus said in that moment and obey anyways: "Yet not my will be done but your will be done."  In the moment, like Jesus, it might get worse before it gets better.  But all men who follow Jesus know - the price we pay is worth the prize and, obeying anyways, is how we honor Jesus' sacrifice for us.