Daily Devotional for Saturday May 14, 2016

Our Blessings Flow from Our Obedience

(2 Kings 5:19-40)

***DAILY PERSONAL PRAYER FOR YOU: ***DAILY PERSONAL PRAYER FOR YOU: Dear Lord, give me your strength to stand for your Truth no matter what the cost. It is easy to call myself a follower of Jesus, but when confronted, when challenged, when faced with persecution, will I still say I am a follower of Jesus? I love you Lord and ask for your strength so no matter what I have to endure for my faith, I will stand firm. In the name of Jesus I pray...AMEN!

So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, "Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed." But Naaman went away angry and said, "I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?" So he turned and went off in a rage. Naaman's servants went to him and said, "My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!" So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. 2 Kings 5:9-14

Our blessings come from our obedience. How often are we like Naaman. We have a problem in our life and go to God in prayer. He gives us the answer to our problem in His Word. We then have the audacity to not only complain about the answer, but the fact God didn't just snap His fingers and fix our problem. Eventually, almost grudgingly, we follow God's instructions and lo and behold, our problem is solved! Like I say so often, our way never works, but God's way ALWAYS works! Rebellion leads to consequences and obedience leads to blessings!!! That is my message to you today, obedience brings blessings.

I have talked to you in the past about how to HEAR God. That is obviously very important. However, after we hear God, we then have to OBEY God! That can often be easier said than done. God speaks to us in many ways. Most times, He speaks to us through His Word, through our time in prayer, through others, and through our circumstances. As I have shard in the past, the more we practice "hearing God," the better we become at hearing His voice. The key is, God will never contradict His Word. When God speaks to you, it will always be in line with His Word. That is the major test to knowing if it is truly God's voice.

Again, hearing God's voice is important, but after you hear His voice you then need to obey His voice. This is where our commitment to the Lord gets tested. Many time, we hear what God is saying to us but we don't want to obey Him. This is usually the case when He is calling us to do something we dislike or calling us to make some sort of sacrifice. Sacrifice is really not something most people want to hear. We love to hear about blessings, but really don't want to hear about sacrifice.

We claim to love the Lord, but the true test of that love comes when He calls us to sacrifice something for Him. Sacrifice calls us to give up something precious. That something precious can be money, it can be possessions, but in most cases it is OURSELVES! You see, the greatest sacrifice you can make to the Lord is YOURSELF! You have nothing more valuable to give to Christ than your life.

The fact is, when you accepted Jesus into your heart and life by faith, part of that process is the act of giving your life to Him. The Bible says that we have been bought with a price, that it is no longer our life any longer, but that we belong to Him. So when the Lord speaks to you and you are faced with the opportunity to obey His voice, you are really only giving Him what He already owns anyway . . . YOU!

I know that this is a very challenging word today. We are all called each day to obey God's voice. Throughout the course of the day God will speak to us . . . and not just hearing his voice, but obeying his voice is what we are required to do as His followers. Obeying God often calls for sacrifice on our part. Whether it is sacrificing our time, talent, or treasure, ALL WE HAVE BELONGS TO HIM! So in essence, He is only asking us to give Him what already belongs to Him anyway.

I thank God for His Word that guides us through this life. One of the great challenges we have is obeying God's voice. The fact is we have the free will to ignore God or listen to Him. I can tell you without any hesitancy that ignoring God is just stupid since we know it is only going to bring pain and heartache. The reality is God loves to bless His children and God will always bless our obedience! Let me say that one more time, GOD WILL ALWAYS BLESS OUR OBEDIENCE!

I love you and care about you so much. I am praying for you today, that as you hear the voice of God in your life, that you will not just hear His voice but obey His voice. God has a purpose and reason for what He asks us to do. Rarely do we fully comprehend that purpose or reason, but that is not our job. Our job is to simply be obedient and do what God is calling us to do, no matter what that may be. May you take time each day to not only hear God's voice, but be faithful to obey God's voice and enjoy His blessings.

***URGENT MAY FINANCIAL UPDATE! As we head into the final 17 days of May, we are still trying to bring in the final $25,000 of our April operations. In the midst of our personal challenges with our cat, I have been begging vendors to hold off shutting down our bandwidth and other basic operations that is necessary for Liveprayer’s daily operations. Of course, we also have the $40,000 we require for our May internet operations and the $25,000 we require for our May TV programs. $10,000 of that is critically due.

I am asking everyone to pray about what God is calling you to do to help me in the coming days to insure we can clear up the $25,000 left over from April and the first $10,000 of our May operations that we must pay. It is important to our ongoing operations what we get these funds in by Monday!

Pray about this. Our monthly operations for all we do daily, the 2.5 million who receive the Daily Devotional each day, the 40,000 prayer requests we receive every 24 hours that are prayed over and answered, the tens of thousands who visit the website with 17 years of audio, video and text content, 5 “live” TV programs weekly in Chicago and over 80 other markets around the nation each night, translating into lives worldwide impacted each day and apx 500 souls we know of who come to faith in Christ each week from all over the world…all for $2,200 a day! That is a modern day loaves and fishes miracle!

In addition to everyone praying for our financial needs each day, those who are able to give according to their ability to give in order to support God’s work here at Liveprayer, I am praying for 30 of our friends to commit to make a special monthly gift of $2,200 starting in June through December to insure our monthly operations are secure. I am also praying for just 6 of our friend who God has blessed and given the ability to help me with a special one-time gift of $15,000 between now and the end of the month. 2 people who can make that sacrifice in the next few days will insure our critical payments to clear up April’s shortfall and the first payments for May!

AS GOD HAS MOVED ON THE HEARTS OF MANY FRIENDS OVER THE YEARS IN ORDER TO ADVANCE HIS WORK HERE AT LIVEPRAYER, I AM PRAYING IN FAITH FOR 30 WHO CAN MAKE THAT SPECIAL MONTHLY SACRIFICE OF $2,200 STARTING IN JUNE THROUGH DECEMBER, AND 6 WHO CAN SEND A SPECIAL ONE-TIME GIFT OF $15,000 BETWEEN NOW AND THE END OF MAY TO INSURE WE END THE MONTH WITH ALL OF OUR FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS CURRENT. IF EVERYONE ELSE WILL PRAY AND GIVE AS YOU ARE ABLE, WE CAN MOVE PAST THIS CRITICAL FINANCIAL PHASE!

***TO GIVE A GIFT TO LIVEPRAYER, you can use your major credit card on our secure server at: www.liveprayer.com under the "Donation" link, you can give using your PayPal account using my email address: bkeller@liveprayer.com , or you can mail your gift to: Liveprayer, 6660 46th Ave. North, St. Petersburg, FL 33709. All gifts to Liveprayer are 100% tax deductible.

Thank you for being faithful and being OBEDIENT, since our blessings flow from our obedience!!!

In His love and service,

Your friend and brother in Christ,

Bill Keller