Did I ask you to call [so and so]?” the Lord spoke to my heart.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Why aren’t you?”
“Because I’m lying here and I’m comfortable,” I said. I don’t slow down all too often though I’m ever in need of rest, but when I do slow down I’m not exactly ready to move until I feel good and ready.
Ugh. The Lord didn’t need to speak another word to my heart. His Holy Spirit brought conviction deep within.
I am the one who regularly tells people and writes about how Jesus’ followers are to deny self, take up our crosses, and to follow Him. How we’re not to live for self but for the Lord. How we’re not to live to please ourselves and seek pleasure and comfort for me, me, and me. How instead we’re to live to love and worship and glorify the Lord forever and to love others. Enough said.
I got up out of the bed to write this message and to make the call God wanted me to make.
For Christ’s sake, let us humble ourselves, lay aside our comfort when God calls us to do so, and forsake all for the Lord. This doesn’t mean we’ll never be comfortable. It doesn’t mean the Lord doesn’t want to bless us and for us to enjoy our lives. But it does mean God and His will must come first and that the enjoyment and pleasure and comfort we do have must be God-ordained and pleasing and honoring to Him.
I’ve been on the road for Jesus with my special needs ministry dogs for some years now and have experienced quite a bit of leaving behind comfort for Christ both in small ways and big ways, and it’s been worth leaving behind every ounce of comfort God has called me to forsake to enjoy the amazing blessedness of loving and serving the Lord and others with every ounce of my heart!
Any comfort God wants you to forsake to follow Him? Please don’t argue. Please don’t rebel against Him. Please turn it loose and be totally devoted to the Lord and His will for you each and every day and forever and ever, AMEN!
“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,” Philippians 3:8 KJV
“And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
Luke 9:23 KJV