IF WE ARE OBEDIENT

After Jesus was crucified, buried and arose, He gave His disciples a promise that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. (Acts 1: 4-5 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which”, He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now”.)

God sends the Holy Spirit into our lives when we are born again and become His child. And if we are obedient to Him the Holy Spirit will guide our lives. We will stay out of trouble, won’t suffer near the heartache and trouble that God will allow to come into our lives to chastise us for our misbehavior.

Hebrews 12: 5-8 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him; for when the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are bastards and not sons.

As a child I can’t ever remember getting into trouble when I obeyed my Dad. But when I disobeyed my Dad he had a saying that went like this, “It looked like where the hawk knocked the feathers out of a terrapin” and believe me that is what it looked like when he got through with me.

Back some years ago I had cattle. I used a Border Collie to handle them with. The cows knew what the consequences was when they did not follow my commands. They were put on rye grass every morning to feed about two hours and then I would call them and if they didn’t come I would send old Jim “the border collie” after them and when they saw him they knew he meant business.

One morning one of the cows had a new calf and that morning when I called they came. The momma cow and new calf were the last as they came up to the gate. It was so amazing; she took her nose and nudged and guided the new calf through the gate. The interesting part of it was she knew if she and the calf did not go through the gate that I would put old Jim on them and she didn’t want her calf to have to be punished.

My question to you as a Christian is if a cow can have that much sense to know what will happen if they disobey, why in the world can’t we as human beings obey the direction of the Holy Spirit and stay out of trouble.