A Sermon Delivered on Wednesday evening, November 18
th, 2020, by
Evangelist PAUL ACQUAH, Live on MZ Radio London, Uk
We see through the word of God, several men and women who heard God’s voice and simply obeyed and became a great success. They believed in what God spoke and were convinced based on God’s character and nature that if He promised something, He had the ability and the desire to bring it to pass. They gave themselves to God’s eternal purposes and saw good success in their lives. In a similar manner, you can also believe and obey God so you can fulfil your purpose and participate in God’s eternal purposes. All over scripture, we see examples of God’s people ignoring His direction for the sake of safety and security and it never ended well for them. So, don’t rob yourself of the success that God will give you when you focus on living in obedience rather than living according to the standards of this world. The purpose of this message is to the truth that our faithful commitment to obey and trust God is the guaranteed way to attain success.
In the last couple of episodes, we’ve been talking about success attitudes. Today, I want to talk to you for
a few moments about success attitudes with emphasis on how obedience affects our lives. First of all, let
me remind you that when you disobey, the cost is huge. First, you rob yourself of opportunities to serve
Almighty God and become a partaker of all the good things the grace of God has provided for us. You then live a life without purpose. Isa. 1:18 talks about what the grace of God has provided for us.
Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the LORD,
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.
This is a powerful text of scripture describing the grace of God. It says that if your sins are blood-red, they’ll be snow-white. Marvellous! If they’re red like crimson, they’ll be like wool. Let God do in your life what you cannot do for yourself. And that can happen only through your obedience and cooperation. Nobody deserves forgiveness. We have a saviour that paid for our sins and that’s the only way our sins are dealt with. Having been forgiven, our sins are changed from crimson to white as snow, not through our own goodness or because we deserved it, but by the grace of God.
It’s all about the grace of God. How do your sins get forgiven? Only by what Jesus did. You cannot wash
away your sins, only the blood of Jesus washes away sins. The Bible talks about how the leopard cannot
get rid of its spots. You have to have God to supernaturally touch you, and that’s the grace of God. The
grace of God has provided forgiveness of sins and only those who believe in what Christ has done can be cleansed of their sins.
Those of us who obeyed God’s command to receive Christ’s gift of salvation have been delivered from the punishment of sin. “But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered” (Rom. 6:17). I want to encourage you to tap into what grace has already provided. God has already provided everything that we will ever need before we had the need. That’s the wonderful miracle working God.
He created Adam and Eve and He didn’t wait until they sinned before He provided the means by which
mankind can be forgiven of their sins. The Bible says the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the
world. He didn’t wait until they were hungry before He said oh you need some food and then He responded to them. Or you need to breath and then He gave them air. God anticipated every need of Adam and Eve and the entire human race. That’s the God we serve. That’s the God I want to introduce to you.
Understanding that God has already provided everything that we will ever need will change your thinking.
Our future is history to God because He knows everything. We are not waiting on God to move; God is
waiting on us to reach out and receive. That doesn’t mean we sit down and think God has already done it
so there is no responsibility on us. This is not about you taking responsibility to make God do something.
But it is the fact that we have to respond to God’s ability and that’s our responsibility. There is a part that
we have to play.
God has already created the supply before you had the need, and there is something He has put in your hand that will release His power. There is nobody who is incapable of overcoming or succeeding in life. It doesn’t matter how bad your sickness is, or how bad your finances are, or how bad your emotional problems are, it doesn’t matter. Whatever has happened to you, or whatever situation you are in, God has anticipated your problem and He has created the supply before you ever had the need, so just tap into it. There is a way for you to turn that situation around. But it’s usually beyond our ability to do that, praise the Lord, that’s why we have the Holy spirit to guide us and show us these things. Our part is to trust and obey Him.
Receiving Christ as your saviour is only the beginning of a life of success. You have to obey whatever God tells you to do so that you can enjoy God’s goodness. Every good and perfect gift comes from God, but to enjoy those gifts, you need to obey Him.
19 If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land; (Isa. 1:19)
Disobedience will cost you missed opportunities and a lot of failure. Whenever God speaks, He wants our
immediate response. When the Holy Spirit has put something in your heart, to lead and guide and direct
your life, and you do nothing, you rob yourself of good things that He has for you. You rob yourself of
good success. So, make sure you are following His leadings. Obey His command, trust and obey there is
no other way.
You will not succeed in life accidentally. Faith will not suddenly make you succeed in life. There are a lot
of people who assume that we just do the best we can, and God automatically makes things happen. God has shown us in His word that we can succeed in life, but we have to pursue it. It doesn’t automatically come to pass. There is nothing too big for God to do in us and through us. God has anticipated our needs and has already created the supply, but why don’t we see things come to pass? I ask you and I ask myself.
We only have to respond through obedience and maximum cooperation with Him.
No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue which rises against you in judgment
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD,
And their righteousness is from Me,”
Says the LORD. (Isa. 54:17)
You have to have the right attitude to life. If we cooperate with God, we can overcome anything that the
devil throws at us because Isaiah 54:17 shows we are successful, weapon proof, and that nothing shall by any means hurt us, but why are weapons formed against you succeeding in your life? Answer that question for yourself. And I ask myself as well. Why are you hurting when the Bible says nothing shall by any means hurt you? If God be for us who can be against us. In all these we are more than conquerors. So, we conquer, it doesn’t matter the situation. Yet some are living defeated lives. I ask myself why? So, ask yourself why as well.
You see, you have to understand that the fact that no weapon formed against us will prosper doesn’t mean that you have nothing to do. You have to play your part. Friend, if you don’t obey God, or follow His
leading, Satan is going to take advantage of your disobedience, and He is going to steal, kill and destroy.
Jesus said, “the thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). So, you have a choice, you have a part to play my friend.
Another scripture which will be of interest to you is Rom. 6:16 which says, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness”? So again, you’ve got a part to play. You have to take responsibility. This scripture is saying, whoever you obey is going to dominate your life, he is going to control you.
God has created us for success, but we have to follow His leading and obey Him for us to possess that
successful life. For various reasons, when most people don’t see the manifestation of God’s power in their lives, they think it’s God who is refusing to release his power to help them. But the scripture we read in Isaiah 1:19 which says, “if you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land,” is coming
from almighty God. However, most people don’t even know that God created them for success. And for
those of us who know that God has created us to succeed in life, it doesn’t mean we will succeed in life if
we don’t cooperate with Him and obey Him.
We have a tendency to lean on our own understanding, and there are many people who have understanding that God created them for success but they are going about it in their own way, through their own strength and power and they mess things up tremendously. So, it’s not just about knowing that God created you for success, but you have to follow God’s directives. You have to obey what God is saying to you.
“If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land”.
You have to learn how to succeed in life. It’s one thing to know that you have been created for success and another thing to follow God’s directions and pursue a life of success. Do you know that anybody can start the journey to a successful life but it’s not about the starters, it’s about those who finish. Jesus said I have finished what you sent me to do. Then on the cross, He said it’s finished. Also. Apostle Paul said, I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, I have finished the course. And I pray that we will also finish the same way.
There are Christians who are falling out by the wayside. There has been a survey that says there are many Christians who don’t go to church. And if you don’t go to church, how can you be taught? How can you be discipled? How can you know the truth? You need church attendance as well as your own private Bible study. And that’s how we succeed in life. There are millions of people who have been touched by the power of God but they are not in church today. There are a lot of who were at one time on fire for God, but today other people around them couldn’t tell that they had a relationship with God.
Everybody has seen people who started out well but fell by the wayside. They couldn’t finish the race. So, it’s not everybody who is going to live a successful life even though God’s original plan was for us to
succeed. We need to trust and obey. That’s the only way. So, if you have not trusted Christ as your Lord
and personal saviour, then you haven’t even started tapping into this successful life package that God has for you. So, if you will, you may pray this prayer.
Dear Lord: I recognise that I am a sinner and need to be saved.
I understand that Jesus died in my place and suffered the judgment of all of my sins.
I believe that Jesus rose from the dead and He is at the right hand of the father.
Lord Jesus, I surrender my Life to you.
Come and Live in my heart and be my Lord and saviour.
Thank You for saving me. AMEN!