Self-Discovery

If we are not careful, we will live as if God does not exist.  We are not atheists by declaration or by determination but rather by our disregard for God's presence in and about us.  Sin is the absence of God in what we do and think.  It rarely is blatant rebellion against God's rule;  it is almost always a careless looking away from Him so that matters can be settled quickly and easily.  Whether it is the fueling of a lust or the dampening of a once passionate affection for all things  Christ, Sin begins with passive aggression.  Remember that you become Satan's ally once you turn aside from God's rule of you.  Adam just wanted to please his new wife and took the fruit because it seemed like God wasn't looking.  A Lord so great and so all-consuming cannot reveal Himself completely until you choose Him in the silent quarters because to have life in Him you must choose Him freely without compulsion.  No one can decide for you if His redemption is good enough to take whole-heartedly; it is your call.  When you do, the Holy Spirit begins to work in you a growing disgust for everything that doesn't have the smell and taste of Christ living in it.  The most miserable people in the world are Christians who have stopped being disciples for a while and taken to the corners of faith where Christ is shadowy and troubling.  The fruit never tasted good; it just seemed good and once it was grabbed by Eve and then Adam the power of its pull was in the loss of trust in God to make all things right and truly good.  It was always a lie that God didn't have Adam's best interests at heart and that is where we begin to go when we stop thinking about and with Christ.  The mind not on God quickly descends into darkness.  Satan doesn't care much what distracts you...whether it be an "Eve" or an "apple" or the fanatic infatuation with self, it is fine with him.  Satan wants you disoriented enough to not care if Christ is with you or not.  Once you turn to God however, the powers of Heaven are brought to bear in you and you have all the mercy and love of Christ at your disposal to live in the limitless joy His personality in you can bring.

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.  John 3: 21 NIV

Praying or Fantasizing

Mark 11:24 NIV

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

How Confident Are About Praying?

A number of years ago we went to Disneyland and our daughter was only three.  She loved to dress up in princess outfits and she had a number that she brought for our trip there.  One day she could dress as Cinderella, another as Snow White and the next she was prepared to be Belle.  In fact she could change in the middle of the day and be a different princess at lunch and dinner.  Her face would light up when she spotted Arial or Belle or Pocahontas mingling in the crowd.  We had to wait for Rachel to stand in line and greet each of the princesses she came across. There was even a lunch meet and greet that Rachel attended.  Rachel was mesmerized by the parades when the princesses all came together in one place and she stared at them all wide-eyed.  Reality and fantasy came together in a mystical union.  That is until reality rose up and trampled fantasy one cloudy afternoon when Rachel spotted one of the Disneyland princesses standing out behind a building smoking a cigarette.  She was stunned and she never forgot the disappointment she felt at the unexpected sight.

Many have given up on Christianity because they believe it is like the Disney princesses; it is all a dress up that in the end is a sham.  Perhaps you have struggled with believing the Bible.  There is much about it that is interesting and helpful but some of the stories in it appear to be too good to be true.  The promises about prayer in particular hang you up as it does not seem like God holds up His end of the bargain.  You pray but the outcome is not what you had hoped.  Or worse, your praying seems to have been a waste of time and left you discouraged and feeling snookered by empty promises of God’s help.

Two case studies found in the Bible shed a bit of light on our discussion.  When Lazarus, a good friend of Jesus, became deathly ill, his sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." (John 11: 3 NIV)  When Jesus did not do anything about Lazarus’s condition and he died, both sisters were dumbfounded by His lack of help.  When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." (John 11:32 NIV)  How closely this mirrors the experience of many who have prayed and been disappointed by the results!

Prior to the birth of Christ, an elderly widow lived at the Temple and spent her days praying.  There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. (Luke 2:36-37 NIV)  We have no idea what sorts of matters were on her prayer list but we must say she had to wait an awfully long time before meeting the Messiah.  Not only that, should we just ignore the fact that this woman of prayer lost her husband after only seven years of marriage?  How much disappointment with prayer was locked up within the heart of this elderly widow for all those years!

Our problem, when it comes to praying, is not just the seeming slowness or even lack of responses to prayer.  We face a much more daunting task when it comes to believing in God.  We lack a physical connection to Him that can make trusting in Him more reasonable and sustainable.  We can’t see Him, hear Him or touch Him and that is not normal when it comes to relationships.  It can be argued that we don’t, hear, see or touch those we meet online and yet believe they are who they say they are but experience with fraud makes many such “encounters” impossible to trust completely.  When it comes to God, we don’t even have a picture profile to consider!  Yet, is it insane to believe in a God we cannot see, touch or hear?

Author Philip Yancey suggests we should consider the case of the woman who has been blind since birth who has never seen light and cannot see it.  How would you prove the existence of light to her?  You could present her with products of light such as heat or plant life but that does not prove light to her.  Light is real and not at all imaginary but to the one who has no sensitivity to it, light is just hearsay, only taken on trust.  If everyone in the world is blind from birth, men, women and children, light as described in books is to the entire crowd “religious” or “unscientific”.  It might be considered “mythological” and yet it is as real as the birds chirping in the trees.  The doubt in the minds of those who cannot see that light exists would not mitigate the reality of light.

We certainly lack the Spiritual sense needed to scientifically “prove” the presence of demons and angels, God and Satan but that is what we must accept when we speak of God and prayer.  Jesus did not try to pretend something else was the case.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24 NIV)  Rarely does God make Himself available to our physical senses.  Yet He has done so and many of the blind in our world just won’t believe the accounts given of His presence being seen, heard, touched or smelled. There is something else we must consider when it comes to knowing about the existence of God and believing in prayer.

The American Journal of Psychiatry reported a study of Harvard students who had experienced a “religious conversion.  They discovered that these students showed a dramatic change in their lifestyles.  Their use of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes went down spectacularly.  What is more, they did much better academically than they did before their conversion and were less likely to suffer from depression and despair when compared to the rest of the student body.  What does it mean when an internal transformation which is attributed to God results in an externally proven outcome?  Religious Americans are proven to be more likely to give money to someone homeless, spend time with someone depressed, return excess change to a clerk, help someone find a job and donate blood.  At what point do those who do not have the sensory equipment to see or touch God begin to consider the facts regarding the accomplishments of the God they cannot see?

Faith is the operating system of our relationship with God and that is not going to change!  We live by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV)  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)  Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6: 29 NIV) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)  This is the way God works with us.  We must have faith in Him that He exists if we are to have a relationship with Him that transforms our lives.  It will not be altered; this plan of God.  No amount of complaining that God does not let us see, hear or touch Him will change His mind.  The Lord will do in us and through us what our faith in Him permits.  It has been shown that with God operating in people’s lives, crime, drug use, violence and gang activities go down.  What proof do you need to recognize that you pray to a God who changes people’s lives and literally is a part of what they do?

When you pray, the Lord will transform your character, create in you a hatred of your own sin and generate a growing desire to be close to Him.  He will guide you so that you will be able to make sense of what to do.  He will work in others and change them too.  God will alter your circumstances so that in the end all you face and encounter will turn out for your good.  To pray, you must have faith to pray.  To communicate with God who is real, you must believe that He is real.  You will never be certain that God exists or that He is part of your praying until you actually decide to believe He exists and then pray.  Once that transaction takes place, the Lord will move Heaven and Earth to keep you close to Him supernaturally and coherently.  You may not yet believe God loves you fully but that will come as you trust Him enough to pray.  Faith opens your mind to pray; miracles always follow faith…they don’t come before it.  A miracle is nothing more complex than this.  It is the discovery that God is in actuality a part of your life and giving you the very best He has to offer in response to your praying.  So pray.  Pray often.  Pray with your mind on God and your heart open to whatever He gives you.

Christ Actualization--The Second Force

1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 NIV

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

Are You Conscious of the Second Force?

Several years ago I was with Mary Jo’s family at a lake and her brother had a ski boat.  It was exciting for our family and the other cousins because it was for many of the kids the first time any of them had ever been in a boat and more pertinently, the first most of them had ever tried skiing.  I was excited to give it a try.  I had gone water skiing about fifteen years before and although it had been a struggle, I had gotten up on my skis and had a great time jumping the wake and bouncing along on the water.  Several kids tried and a number failed getting up on the skis the first time they tried.  Most of the adults had water skied before and although it might have been a while, they all got up, some even using just one ski.  I was one of the last to try and although I was a bit nervous, I was fairly confident I could rise up on the skis and cruise around the lake.  The boat circled around me as I waited in the water for the tow rope and then it passed near enough for me to grab it.  I leaned back, bent my knees, stuck my skis straight up toward the sun and waited for the boat to work its way into position to launch me up onto the surface of the water.  Many of Mary Jo’s sisters and brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews stood on shore watching and our kids were in the boat with Mary Jo waiting to see how I would do.  All of a sudden the boat lurched forward with groaning power, I stood upon the skis, my legs still bent a bit at the knees and I immediately toppled forward, my hands firmly grasping the tow rope handle as the boat dragged me with my mouth wide open through the lake.  Finally, the force of the water pushing against me drove the handle from my grip and I slid back into the water having swallowed what seemed like half the lake in my effort to get up on my skis.  Before any movies were ever developed with this theme, I thought about what it would have been like if instead of the overweight and clumsy body I possessed, my mind had been poured into the body of someone like James Bond.  No one would have been laughing at me flopping into the water like a breeching humpback whale.

Have you ever wished you could possess the abilities of someone else?  Perhaps you would have liked to have had the math skills of Albert Einstein, the writing ability of Charles Dickens, the grace of Simone Biles, the looks of Zach Efron or Beyoncé.  All of us could use from time to time a talent, personality trait or skill of someone else.  Yet it is not possible to take on the qualities of another person because we are limited to who we are.  In a sense, we are trapped within ourselves.   We are bound to who we are and the characteristics we possess…at least that is how it seems.  The Bible though tells us that there can be more to us than the limitations of self. That is why the concept of self-realization is not only restrictive and not very hopeful, it is irrational.  There is more to us that just us.

Before humanity came upon Jesus Christ, we were constrained to just who we were.  There were no talents that could be added to us, no one else could think within us to shape our ideas or decisions: we had no moral strength or integrity other than what we developed on our own.  This all changed when Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead.  Jesus hinted at what the three days from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday would accomplish when He promised, "Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:5-7 NIV)  The Lord promised that the “Counselor” would be with us always.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— (John 14:16 NIV) What the Counselor would do for us is specified by Christ.  But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.  (John 14:26 NIV)

The most profound change human personality can experience is what occurs when we are born again or as it also can be translated, “begotten from above”.  Jesus stated, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. (John 3:5 NIV)  In other words, it is impossible to be Christian unless a supernatural transformation occurs, described by Christ as being born of water and the Spirit.  Now what it means to be “born of water” has long been debated but it seems clear enough based on the symbolism of water in the Old Testament that it is an idiom our Lord used for cleansing from sin.  I must, if I am to enter the Kingdom of God, have my sin washed out of me and it is the work of the Holy Spirit through the death of Christ on the Cross that takes out of me my sin and makes me new.  It is only after the Spirit of God becomes a part of you and transforms you that you are Christian.  What triggers the transformation?  When in faith we put our trust in Jesus Christ crucified to save us from our sin, the work of God begins in us. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.  "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:14-16 NIV)

We see this phenomenon of the Spirt of God becoming a part of people described often in the book of Acts.  Just one example of the transforming work of having the Holy Spirit join with the personality of Christian people illustrates this.  After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. (Acts 4:31 NIV)  There was something different about these people who were filled with the Holy Spirit that was not them before.  They spoke boldly about God!  This was clearly something different about them.  With the Holy Spirit now a part of them, they were courageous in their evangelism.  In the book of Romans we discover another way the Holy Spirit alters the personality of Christians when He is a part of them.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:5 NIV)  The Holy Spirit puts into the personality of the Christian the love that God possesses.  Much like a daughter gains from her father or mother the innate ability to play musical instruments, so the “chromosome” of love comes to us from God when the Holy Spirit becomes part of us.  We don’t just have our capacity to love built in us but God’s also.  It does not just end there.  Christ gives us His very own peace when the Holy Spirit becomes a part of us.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14: 27 NIV)  We are just scratching the surface here.  If God is a part of who we are when we are born again, then there are an infinite number of possible qualities we gain from Him.  The Apostle Paul said that when he thought about the Philippian Christians, he did so not just out of his own affection for them but also because the affection of Christ was built in him too.  God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:8 NIV)

Consider just what is possible for any person who has been born again and has the Spirit of God a part of his or her personality!  We can forgive not just with our own capacity to forgive but also with God’s own ability.  We can be courageous, not just with our own bravery but also with the bravery God possesses. We can be calm and at peace in any circumstance, not just because we have a certain developed or innate ability to stay calm but also because we have now built in us the capacity of Christ to be at peace.  Even the mind of God is ours when the Spirit of God is a part of us.  The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"   But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:14-16 NIV)

Can you see what an inadequate and demeaning goal, self-realization is?  Why would I be interested at all in being all I can be when I can become all Christ and I can be?  It is like asking a ballerina to strive to become as graceful as one of the early prototype robots built fifty years ago.  It is like telling a nuclear physicist to try and become as competent in math as the first grader living next door.  Our goal must never be to try and become all we can be but all God built in us can be.  It is not self-actualization but Christ actualization that drives us forward.  Consider the example of Barnabas who sold land of his and gave the proceeds of the sale to the church.  This of course may have been his nest egg; the retirement he hoped would support him in his twilight years or it might have just been one piece of property among many.  It certainly seems like an extravagant gift and might have pushed him to the limits of his generosity to give it.

Let the full weight of this simple act sink in as you read the complete account of what happened.  After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.  With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet. (Acts 4:31-37 NIV)

If we are to reach our potential as people, we must never give in to the antiquated and insufficient goal of being all we can be.   With the Spirit of God as part of us, we can become as generous and kind, and loving and honest and insightful and good as God in us can be.  Consider this as we close.  As the personality of Christ works His way through us, we become the Kingdom of God moving about in practice.  When His love becomes our love, when His generosity becomes our generosity, when His courage becomes ours, we shall be as we let Christ have His way in us, the works of God wherever we go!  Now that is reaching our potential!

Salvation Doing

Matthew 19:16-17 NIV

 Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"  "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."

How Is Your Salvation Coming Along?

The other day I took our dog Salsa out to run around and sniff things.  I usually don’t make her go on a leash.  I like for her to have freedom to use her mind and to act upon the external stimuli she discovers.  Dogs need the opportunity to think in new settings and explore.  No one else in the family can let her go off leash in the neighborhood because I am the only one who has absolute control over her.  When I call to her, no matter how far away she has wandered, if she can hear me, she will come running.  Sometimes I can tell she doesn’t want to come and her mind is trying to decide if she will keep up her sniffing where she is or return to me.  Rarely does she hesitate for long.  As I stood outside and watched Salsa wander about, suddenly her head jerked up to attention, her nostrils flared and in a split second she shot off into the street.  We live on the corner of two busy neighborhood streets that have significant blind spots.  Cars shoot through the intersection with almost no warning and there are no stop signs to slow them.  Suddenly Salsa was in the middle of the intersection going full bore after a squirrel.  I yelled for Salsa to stop but her mind was settled and she ignored my shout.  My screams to come back had no impact on her.  Salsa chased the squirrel madly through the street and to the foot of a tree where the squirrel escaped her fury.  It was only after she was foiled that the dog returned to me, obedient once again.  I learned something about Salsa that day.  She will obey me up to the point that some desire more powerful than her wish to please me comes to her.  Salsa is still obedient; it is though, to something other than me.

Obedience is fickle not just when it comes to dogs but to people also.  There are powerful forces that impact the direction obedience takes.  Of course, people are much more sophisticated than dogs and our rules of obedience more complicated but there is a pattern we find when it comes to obedience that may be important to explore.  Why is it that a man who loves his wife will leave her for someone else even though he knows the damage it will cause and how many people he respects will be upset with him for leaving her?  How come a patient will decide not to take the medication given her despite the authority of the doctor and her knowledge medicin?  Why do children disobey their parents even if they might face dire consequences for their actions and how do you explain speeding on the freeway when tickets are so expensive and the hassle of traffic school so aversive?  What is it about disobedience that makes it such a universal habit of people?  Why do we chase squirrels into busy intersections?  Today we weill deal with part of the answer to this question.

Perhaps you, like me, find it interesting Jesus’ response to the young man who asked Him how to gain eternal life.  "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments." (Matthew 19:17 NIV)  The Lord connects surprisingly life with obedience to the commandments of God.  This is particularly disconcerting given what we think we know about eternal life based on the promises found in the Bible; that it is a free gift of God that comes to us through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16 NIV) (John 3:16  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NIV) But here in Jesus’ reply it seems that obedience to the commandments of God is required for eternal life which is the opposite of what we have all been taught!  The confusion is understandable but not necessary.  Let us look a bit more closely at this terse response of the Lord to the young man wanting to know about eternal life.

It is helpful if we consider the tenses of the verbs in this passage.  Literally the Greek text reads, “If you want into life to enter, keep the commandments!”  “If you want” is in the present tense which indicates continuous action.  In other words He is telling us, “If you continually want eternal life” or “If you always want to have eternal life” or “If eternal life is forever on your mind”, then He says, “to enter, keep the commandments.”   The second and third parts of this are tricky and it takes careful thinking to see this clearly.  “To enter” is in the aorist tense which describes a moment in time rather than continuous action.  The same is true of the command of Jesus, “Keep the commandments!”  This also is in the aorist tense and indicates a moment in time.  Now that we have gotten the technical part of the Greek language out of the way, let us examine the gist of Jesus’ words.

Eternal life is continuous and we have it as a result of the gift of God dying to take away our sin and being raised to life that we through His life might have the same eternal life as God.  Now the point Christ makes is this.  Eternal life is worked into us by God as a gift.  It is worked out of us by us in our doing.  Through Christ we always have eternal life but it is experienced in moments in time as we live out in practical and real ways the life God gives us.  How do we live out the eternal life we have in Christ?  Jesus said we do it by keeping the commandments.    The Apostle Paul put it this way.  “As you have always obeyed…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you…” (Philippians 2: 12-13 NIV) In other words, God gives you salvation.  You work out that salvation in your everyday life by doing what God tells you to do.  The reason you can obey Him and work out the salvation you possess is because it is God who is working in you in all you do as you obey Him.  Let us use an everyday example to illustrate this.

Suppose you want to make your favorite dinner and in doing so there are specific ingredients and spices and types of dishes you like the most.  You prefer it all cooked in a certain way but for some reason you have forgotten all this and now are dependent on someone else to guide you through it.  Of course it would be wise to carefully take into consideration everything that guide has to tell you for it is in your best interests to follow to the letter what you are told.  In our case, we have lost our memory or our sense of everything that makes eternal life, life.  We don’t know what it is because Sin has warped our grasp of it.  The Lord however does know what that life is and how it is put together and so He has given us commands that make that life come together in a practical way.  That is what the commands of God are, the way of Life…the way of the Eternal Life.

Without spending any time reflecting right now on what those commands that make eternal life real life are, we can take a moment to consider a case study on the application of obeying the commands of God and seeing life come out of it.  The fiancé of Mary, the mother of Jesus was described by Matthew, one of Jesus’ Disciples as a “righteous man”!  (Matthew 1: 19)  What does that mean?  It means he obeyed the commands of God.  Now what did Joseph know of God, eternal life and all God wanted to make of him?  Not very much probably!  But he was about to discover a great deal about God’s life with him.  He may not have been the first man ever to find out before he got married that his fiancé was pregnant with someone else’s child but he certainly was given the most unusual explanation for it.  Mary of course “was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:18 NIV)  This would have seemed like utter nonsense to Joseph but he was a “righteous man” and so he decided in his best sense of what the scriptures taught of how to live and conduct one’s business that he would quietly divorce Mary rather than make all sorts of public accusations and bring her up to local authorities for stoning.  He could have done this of course and certainly none of his friends would have faulted him for it but he knew about love and mercy and he knew about the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself.

It was in Joseph’s righteousness that God, opened up to Joseph His plan for Joseph and Joseph’s fiance.  It came in a dream.  But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." (Matthew 1:20-21 NIV)  We mustn’t succumb to the temptation to quickly run right through all that happens here because the account is so familiar to us.  It is a perfect lesson on the value of obedience.  Joseph had a dream…all of us have had dreams and nearly all of the dreams we have we give little if any notice.  They are generally an absurd tangle of material coming out of our unconscious.  In Joseph’s case…at least this time, a dream was a revelation of God to him.  Any of us, with only the information Joseph had in his grasp, would not have faulted Joseph if he had ignored the dream and proceeded with his plan to quietly divorce Mary.  Joseph though was a righteous man and careful to do what God said to do.  He was determined to keep the commands of God and this, He realized, was a command of God.  It was a strange command and one that on the surface appeared to be asking too much of Joseph but it was a command nonetheless and so he did it.  He obeyed.  When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.  But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. (Matthew 1:24-25 NIV)

Not long after that Joseph had another dream and God opened Himself up to Joseph even more of his plans and told Joseph that he needed to take his young family to Egypt because King Herod was going to try and kill the baby Jesus.  What did Joseph gain in all these “obeyings”?  Jesus defined eternal life in a way we don’t often consider.  Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3 NIV Eternal life is continual intimate knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ.  In our case study, Joseph did what God told him to do (i.e. followed a command), and the Lord revealed more of Himself to Joseph.  If eternal life is knowing God more and more as we go along, and if in obeying the Lord’s commands for us, we dive deeper and deeper into eternal life, then the reward for doing what God tells us to do is that we grow closer to Jesus.  Consider this as you take one of God’s commands to obey.  “God is love.”  Thus, the command you are given is given to you because of God’s love and when you obey it, the outcome of obeying will be something due to God’s love for you and in obeying you are filled even more with His love than you were before.  Go to God and ask Him to show you a command He wants you to obey.  He will reveal something to you.  Don’t hesitate, do what He tells you to do.  It may not seem practical, the command.  It may even seem to be mean for God to make the requirement.  But if you do the command, if you obey God in it, you will like Joseph, discover that God’s love for you is greater and more wonderful than you ever knew before.