Obey God, Not People
There are all kinds of forces in our world that people are using to try to convince us of what we should do. There are so many types of media, and if we engage in them, we will be bombarded by human wisdom and propaganda for one issue of another. There are people calling us on our cellphones and sending us text messages urging us to do what they want. It can be overwhelming at times. I know I try to stay away from all of these influences most of the time, because I know that we must obey God first and foremost. We must not allow the opinions of men to keep us from knowing and doing God's will. We see this tension in the book of Acts over and over. The Jewish leaders were trying to stop Peter and the apostles from obeying God. They were trying through force to persuade them to back off from telling others about Jesus and doing other things God commanded them to do. Peter and the apostles stood up to their assault. (Acts 5:29) At one point they made it crystal clear when they replied, "We must obey God rather than people." This must be our commitment today, if we are going to live an abundant Christian life that is pleasing to God.
People can try to keep is from doing God's will in two ways. Others will do what the Jewish leaders did to the early church believers. They will try to put pressure on us to stop doing God's will. They will make fun of us, threaten us with angry words, and even try to put us in jail. We must never allow fear of man to keep us from obeying God. In fact, we should know for certain that fear of man is never a reason to disobey God, so we should dismiss that fear completely. Then, people try to get us to do what they want us to do. They make every effort to convince us that man's wisdom is right, so we will follow people, not God. That is what has happened during the pandemic when they tried to convince us that the "science" said to stay away from worship services and coming together with our church families. I know it was a serious situation, and we did not want anyone to die from a virus. However, it all came down to trusting God and obeying His Word, or trusting in what people were saying. Please, don't decide to do what people say is right. Stick with what God commands. He is always faithful when we obey Him instead of people.
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Tomorrow, I intend to read Acts 7-9.