Daily Encouragement: Day 304

Adapted from Handbook to Spiritual Growth

THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE

Obedience to God produces joy and fulfillment, while disobedience produces sorrow and frustration. There is greater pain in disobedience than in faithfulness. Everything God asks of us is for our good; everything He asks us to avoid is harmful. This is what Evelyn Underhill calls “the sanity of holiness.”

Since I came to Christ in June of 1967, I have never once regretted an act of obedience, but I have always come to regret acts of disobedience. Yet obedience is still difficult, because it is sometimes counterintuitive and usually countercultural. As G.K. Chesterton put it, “The problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult, and left untried.”

Today, take a moment to ask God to reveal to you acts or patterns of disobedience in your life that are blocking His Spirit; name the sin for what it is and give it to Him so the blockage will be removed.