50 Days to More

A Seven Week Campaign to Begin 2018

Week 5: Cultivating the Habit of Hourly Obedience

Day Thirty-Three (2/8/18): Hourly Obedience
Recommended Reading: Proverbs 8:32-36 

As we have been studying all this week, obedience is key to living a life of increase with God. But today we will be learning about the importance of hourly obedience. Obedience must be an hourly event on the pathway to 1,000 times more. It is not a one-time thing; it’s a lifestyle. It must be a part of your routine and your manner of living.

Hourly obedience means that minute-by-minute or moment-by-moment, you are continually listening for the voice of God and following his instructions. Cultivating that habit first has to start in your mind. Before you receive an instruction from The Lord, you must already have decided that you will follow it no matter what it is. Then when the instruction does come, you don’t have to question or waver. You simply obey. This is why we can obey God immediately whenever we hear his voice.

How can we listen for the voice of God? If you ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you, he will! And just like establishing a relationship with a person, you will get to know someone deeper as you spend more time with them. As you spend more time with God and intentionally listen for his voice, you will hear him! Your ear will become tuned to his thoughts, his desires, and thus his instructions.

Romans 8:14 (ESV) says, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

We have access to the leading of the Holy Spirit because he already lives on the inside of us. We are his sons and daughters. He has called us to be a representation of his physical voice and to be his kingdom ambassadors on the earth.

If God is leading you to do something for someone else, speak an encouraging word, pray for someone, whatever it may be - all of those things may seem at first to you like “inklings” in your spirit. Maybe you even think that’s your own heart telling you to be nice to someone who needs it. But if the Holy Spirit lives in you, then yes he’s speaking to you. The moment he came inside you, he changed you. So whether the Holy Spirit already inside you is inspiring that inkling or if the Holy Spirit is speaking to you directly in that moment, it’s a voice you should follow!

As Christians, one of the things we often get hung up on in our spiritual walk is doubting whether a voice is you or God. Something we often tell students is to simply use your common sense. “When the obvious sense makes the best sense, any other sense is nonsense.” If a voice is telling you to do something good, it’s probably God. If a voice is telling you to do something bad or sinful, it’s not God.

Stepping out in faith at hearing God’s voice can be risky, but really what have we got to lose?! There may be a learning curve at first and there will be some trial and error, but developing a new set of skills always does. The destiny God has for you will not come to you instantly. Living a life of more requires your hourly obedience. Then eventually - day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year - you will see how God has brought you to this life of increase and your increase will still be expanding! As you listen and obey at every step, continued revelation and continued increase will come! This is only just the beginning.

“My sheep know my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27 (ESV)

Compiled by Christine Thompson & Meredith Hobbs
Taken from the Sermon Series “7 Steps to One Thousand Times More”
By Pastor Timothy Coats
Family First Church - Spring Hill, Florida