Step 4: OBEDIENCE
What is the will of the Father? Promises or Obedience?
Pastor Maselo Mosomane
What is the will of the Father? Promises or Obedience? “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” Matthew 21:28-31
Have you realized how easy it is to make a promise? Let me rephrase it and see if we cannot amplify the statement even louder. A promise is the cheapest thing you will ever have to make in life. No, I think we need to further iron out the point for better understanding. A promise is not cheap, it is free. You don’t pay a cent to make one.
How many people make promises every day? How many of those who make these promises keep them? Of course, some do but many don’t. Then why do they make promises if they can’t keep them? Maybe we need to check why people make promises in the first place. A lot of times people make promises just to relieve themselves from the immediate pressure and get themselves off the hook. Let us look at a scenario where a person has an account with a department store. He hasn’t been paying his installment for two or three months. He receives a telephone call from the store demanding an immediate payment and is unable to do so. What do you think he is going to do? You are right; he makes a promise to pay next week. Will he be having money next week? Not really. Then why is he making this promise? Because he wants to alleviate the pressure, he postpones.
The problem with promises is that they raise up hope. Hope raises up expectation. When someone promises you help your hope is raised and you expect something. This is what we do to people when we make promises – we raise their hopes and move them into expectation mode. A lot of times they stop seeking as soon as you make that promises. But “hope deferred makes the heart sick” Proverbs13:12. To defer is to suspend, to postpone, to reschedule, to put off. I like “suspend.” When hope is suspended it makes the heart sick. Were you aware that every time we fail to make good our promises we make people sick?
Here’s a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, son, there is a piece of work that needs to be done in the vineyard. I want you to go and finish it for me. He answered, ‘I will not go.’ Then he came to the second and said the same; to which he replied, ‘I will go.’ But he did not go. Later the first son regretted that he refused to do what his father requested of him and went.
What do you think would have happened if the father had started with the second son? Nothing could have been accomplished. The second son promised but failed to keep his promise. The first son is a picture of one who is rude but honest. The second son represents one who is sweet and polite yet a hypocrite. Promising without fulfilling is hypocrisy. Saying yes when you actually mean no is hypocrisy.
To make a promise is the first step towards hypocrisy. You are better off when you change your mind from bad to good rather than from good to bad for repentance is better than back slighting.
Obedience is NOW but promise is LATER. You don’t hear today and obey tomorrow; it does not work that way. Anyone who hears must act immediately. “…whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock” Matthew 7:24. Obedience is therefore hearing and doing. It is better to resist and repent than agree and drift away. A promise is not the will of our Father. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Matthew 7:21.It is not our promises that please God but our obedience.
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