No Hesitation by Randal Mattheny

    “The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house.” (Acts 11:12, NIV)

    When the Lord tells us to obey, he wants immediate action. It doesn’t matter what prejudices or traditions we must abandon. In that moment when we hear God’s voice, we are under obligation to act without delay and comply with his order. Hesitation may cost us our life and the eternal destiny of others.

    When Abraham received the divine order to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering on the altar, he got up early the next morning to make preparations. On the other hand, Moses provoked the Lord’s anger when he offered his weak excuses upon being called to lead Israel out of Egypt.

“Delayed obedience is immediate disobedience. When God calls, we obey. It’s not negotiable.” Kenneth S. Hemphill January 19, 1999 Fort Worth, Texas

    The apostle Peter had to discard in a matter of minutes an entire life of revulsion at contact with Gentiles. God’s mission is universal. His salvation is for all peoples, independent of their origin, nation, race, class, or education. Peter understood that God’s commandment overrides any human notion about reality, the world, or the Divine Plan.

    Where is it that the Lord’s commandment conflicts with your most precious ideas or practices? Are you willing to jettison them into the sea when they threaten to sink your faith? Will you give them up once the clear exposition of the divine will reveals it is your way and not God’s way? That old saying may well be most true in the spiritual realm: “he who hesitates is lost.”

Heavenly Father, forgive our reluctance before your clear teachings revealed in Holy Scripture. We confess that we rationalize, justify, and excuse, instead of obeying.

Give us, Lord God, a readiness for service, a disposition to subject ourselves to your judgments, instead of insisting upon our prejudices. Even in the precepts which appear most difficult, may we remember the example of Jesus who accepted humbly and obediently the way of the cross. May we have, therefore, the courage to love our enemies, proclaim the truth in Jesus, and resist the fiery darts of the Evil One.

May we keep and teach, Father, all things which Christ has commanded us. In the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

HEARTLIGHT^® Magazine is a ministry of loving Christians and the Westover Hills church of Christ.
Edited by Phil Ware and Paul Lee.
Copyright © 1996-98, Heartlight, Inc., 8332 Mesa Drive, Austin, TX 78759.
Copyright © 1999, Randal Mattheny. Used by permission.
HEARTLIGHT and the flared heart design are service marks of Heartlight, Inc.