Matthew 26:38-42
Jesus prayed for the possibility of the cup passing over him, and after He had prayed again, He began to say, “If this cup may not pass over me…”
This reveals that the more you pray about a situation, the closer you get to the will of God. The tone of his request changed.
We need to understand and come to a place of obedience and submission for proper alignment. There is a place for obedience if one is in accordance with God’s will. If you are not ready to be obedient, then you’re also not ready to be in alignment with the will of God.
Sometimes we think prayer is to change the will of God or tighten the hand of God to do what you want, but what you should focus on is God’s will. The quickest way to get a result is to align yourself with what God is doing or intends to accomplish, rather than forcing his hand to do anything. It may appear that you are smart, but in reality, breakthrough comes speedily when a man is in alignment with what God is doing.
The first dimension of prayer is the prayer of inquiry. Jesus prayed himself into the Father’s will, and the more he prayed, the more clarity came. It shifted from the possibility of the cup being taken away to the point of submission. If you want to be in alignment with the Father’s intention, obedience is very paramount. Many people are not willing to be obedient. The script of obedience can be marked by no one except God and you. A man knows when he is in obedience, and when he is not. No one can mark your script of obedience, even when it seems you’re making progress. It is possible to be productive while not in alignment.
Profitability and activities cannot bring a man into aligning with God’s will. You can prosper outside of God’s will. It can work sometimes, and it’s not God. Your desire should be to be in his will and prosper in his will. Your willingness to be obedient to God is one of the factors that creates and maintains alignment. For some people, ministry is not obeying, but ministry is not primarily doing; ministry is obeying. As believers, we must reach a point of submission in which we are not looking for what we desire, but for what God wants.
THE DYNAMICS OF OBEDIENCE:
- Obedience primarily is built around your understanding of the love of God, that God loves you. Obedience is not a burden, but rather a response to a loving God. If he demands your obedience, it means he has a plan and it is a response to the father’s heart.
- Trust: How much you know God, how much you can trust God, and how much you trust God will influence how easy it is for you to obey him, because God will never mismanage your life.
If you have not come to a place where you have that absolute trust that even when you don’t understand the direction you are going, you choose to trust him. In other words, even when we cannot trace him, we will choose to trust him because there are times in our lives when we cannot trace God, when we don’t understand, when nothing makes sense, but we should learn to trust God in those moments.
There is a point you will walk with God and follow God such that people will think you are foolish even if you doubt yourself. Following God becomes much easier when we grasp that when he demands obedience, it is not a burden, but rather a response to the heart of a loving, intentional, and caring father.
The reason why you are not obedient and you are rebellious sometimes is that you don’t trust God. You have not trained your heart to trust him. It will be tough at times to trust God, but you will be able to follow because you have come to the realization that he cannot mismanage your life.
There will be times when you are in tears, bewildered, and unsure, but your trust in the Father will keep you.
When we can’t trace God, we keep trusting him because we have trusted his heart as a father that he can’t mismanage our life. While you can’t understand, you will trust because you will stay in alignment with the will of God. Many individuals have fallen out of alignment because of the dark periods in their lives when they are waiting for answers that do not come, and sometimes they want to be wise or help God; they want to do things their own way. That is why Abraham ended up with Ishmael. Ishmael can never be Isaac.
Ishmael was a misalignment, just as many people settled for it. The only way you can trust God in your dark season is if you have known and trusted in the Lord to the point where you believe that even when you don’t understand, you will trust him because your demand for obedience and submission is not a burden; it is a path to alignment with God’s will.
So, understanding the dimension of the lordship of Jesus over our life as a believer is that we have come to a point where we trust the foolishness of God. A man can be doubting and be obedient. The only way out when you are doubting is to trust God.
3. Readiness to surrender: giving up our will, desires, and goals. Anyone willing to be obedient has reached a point where he must surrender. A place of submission is one in which you want what God wants rather than what you want.
4. The last point is to submit to God’s authority, guidance, and correction; surrender and submission are not the same thing. Submission is that you understand that God has the final say, that you know that there is an authority, a master.
Obedience must be in place to remain in alignment. And what the devil wants is for you to disobey because God’s will is not always easy to follow.
In Genesis , Abraham informed them that God would provide for himself a lamb. He told his servants that they were going yonder to worship and would return.
Abraham came to the point when he said, “Lord, you said I should kill my son and cut off his head, but even if I cut off his head, his head will join back, and he will live again.”
Isaac is a patterned son, a prototype of Jesus, and a submitted son.
How did a provision come in the place of submission? Many people have missed out on the provisions of God because they did not wait. It was a dark season of their life, so they took a step from which they would never recover except through God’s mercy. They concluded too quickly about their life.
Don’t rush to make a permanent decision based on your current situation. God changes times and seasons. It won’t be dark forever.
If it is not Isaac, it cannot be the promise; waiting for Isaac can be difficult, but we must stay in alignment. What the devil is fighting for is alignment. Fear of the unknown takes people out of alignment. Ensure that you are in alignment with obedience. God rewards silent laborers.
Some people in ministry believe that in order to fulfill God’s will, they must fly jets, and that if they do, God will begin to bless them. The dynamics that work around these things are portion, supernatural boldness, and understanding. There is a need for supernatural boldness to believe God and break out. Your script of obedience is between you and God. Joshua was speaking to God and began recounting the places he had conquered when God said, “Now you are old but there are more lands to be conquered.”
A man can live for forty years and believe he has accomplished everything his father expects him to do, yet he has only scratched the surface. Submission will keep you aligned, and you will start to receive instructions.
According to John 4:1, John began baptizing before Jesus arrived, and it appeared that Jesus’ ministry was gaining ground faster than his own. One would imagine that Jesus would stay in the location where his ministry was flourishing, but the Scripture shows that he left Judea and returned to Galilee. Jesus left his “thriving ministry” and proceeded to Samaria, where he met a woman by the well. Jesus left the town and his ministry to go to Samaria. He only met a woman at the well. Without discernment and smart judgment, one may miss out on potential benefits from meeting with a woman. All of this is because you are out of alignment. One could even compare the influence of one woman to what was going on in town. Despite being just one woman, she served as a portal to a whole city. She was like the city’s gatekeeper.
We must be vigilant that we do not miss out on God’s will. We should strive to be in line with God’s will. Jesus’ transition from town to city had a profound impact, as the entire city opened up to his ministry, eliminating the need for him to go from house to house. Through Jesus’ unique change of location, the residents of the city were exposed to the light of the gospel. If you observe a meager outcome, you may believe you know how to perform ministry, but with appropriate alignment, you will find that there is more to be done. The woman didn’t preach; she just said, “Come and see.” They believed it based on the woman’s testimony. We should learn not to dwell on past achievements.
John 5:19, 30 “The son can do nothing for himself.”
Following the events in Judea, God made Samaria his top priority. Jesus did not seek his own will, but that of God. It is most important to follow God’s will rather than our own desires. The parent is searching for obeyers, not doers. When there are more possibilities, it is easier to do so. When you don’t have one, you tend to pray harder for provision.
When you have the resources, you may say that God is not required. When you don’t have other options, obedience is simple. You consider yourself obedient because you have no other options. The outcome is not proof of God’s involvement. We shouldn’t get it wrong.