Isn’t that what you want for your life, to have an impact that lasts hundreds of years? If you listen to God’s voice and obey, the results are supernaturally powerful, even if you don’t see them in your lifetime.
People like Abraham, Noah and Philip must have built a relationship with God beforehand, an established legacy of blessing and miracles through listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit and obeying.
In Matthew 17:24-27, some tax collectors from the temple ask Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples, if Jesus plans on paying the temple tax. This put Peter in an awkward situation. Jesus hasn’t yet paid the tax. Jesus tells Peter, “Go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”
Doesn’t that strike you as odd? I would have thought that Jesus had gone out of His mind. But what did Peter do? He obeyed. That is stark raving obedience.
‘Do You Have Bibles?’
Clive Culver, former head of World Relief, was in Iran on a trip visiting some underground pastors and churches. A pastor shared with Clive what had recently happened to his church through God’s direction. They had a few Bibles come in, and they wanted to deliver them to a house church in a mountain village outside of Tehran, Iran. So they boxed the Bibles up, put them in a car and asked a couple of young men to deliver them.
It’s sort of dangerous to drive around Tehran in broad daylight with the back of your car loaded with Bibles, since the government there puts you in jail for that type of activity. So they left at 5 in the morning the next day to make the journey.
As they traveled through the city they came to a spot where the car seemed to brake. The steering wheel made a hard right turn, and they went slamming around a corner and hit a curb. They thought something major in the front end had snapped.
As they got out to inspect the car, a man approached them. He asked them if they had Bibles. They did not know him and were not about to share information regarding illegal material with a complete stranger. They talked a little about the car and kept on looking for the problem.
The man once again, this time more forcefully, asked them, “Where are the Bibles?” This time one of the young men carefully asked him why he would think that they had Bibles.
He said, “I am part of a small house church up the mountain on the other side of Tehran, and we do not have a Bible. It makes it very hard to learn more about Jesus. We asked God to give us a Bible. Last night I had a dream that an angel came and told me if I would come down to this corner at 5:00 this morning that the Lord would give me Bibles. It is 5:00; you have Bibles.”
The young men said, “Yes we do.”
Because that mountain villager listened and obeyed, the request of his house church was fulfilled supernaturally in a land where following Jesus can lead to death. And on top of that, it increased the faith of the young men transporting the Bibles.
When God calls you to do something, and then you do it, what does He do? He blesses you with provision, joy and peace. Most importantly, He fills your life in every corner with His presence, because now you’re living the life He always intended for you.
Close, intimate, heart-to-heart, friend-to-friend. {eoa}
Isaiah Kallman is a worship leader and experienced speaker to young adults and high schoolers. His father, Ted Kallman, is a lay prayer leader and speaker at prayer and healing conferences (hearinggod.org). This article is excerpted from their book Stark Raving Obedience, available at prayershop.org.
© Prayer Connect 2013.
