Success linked to obedience

Resolving Personal & Spiritual Conflicts
Luke 5:4 Now go out where it is deeper and let down your nets, and you will catch many fish.While success for a non-believer can come as a result of a mixture of hard work and tricks, craftiness, consultation of the occult and using magic, it is not so for a child of God.
Success in life and ministry for a child of God comes mainly along the line of obedience to divine direction and guidance.
 Other factors like honest labour, possession of necessary skills and knowledge and profitable connections are important but the chief determining factor for the success of God’s child is obedience. Obedience to God’s instructions can land even an unlearned, humble and poor person into a glorious life. I have seen people in church who were despised because they lacked basic education but through obedience to God’s leadings and promptings, they were exalted into positions of influence and affluence. 
You can cease a life of struggle and strain and obey your way into an enviable and happy life. Success in life is not always linked to qualifications but God-given favour and opportunity always determine the ultimate placement of a person in life. Ecclesiastes 9:11 strongly asserts this idea, “I have observed something else in this world of ours.
The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise are often poor, and the skilful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being at the right place at the right time.” Time and chance refers to God-given favour and opportunity. If the favour and opportunity are given by God then obedience to His leading is a necessary prerequisite to success. Some miss God-given opportunities through disobedience.
A Christian must know that his or her relationship with God is that of a superior and a junior, a master and a servant. God gives instructions and you follow those instructions. You are not at par with God in terms of power, authority, wisdom, knowledge and understanding. God reveals this gap between Him and people in Isaiah 55:8-9 which reads, “My thoughts are completely different from yours. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Notice that the gap between God and people in all things is as wide as the distance between heaven and earth. A believer must submit to the higher will, ways and thoughts of God if he or she is to attract supernatural increase. Disobeying leads to failure, loss and frustration.
 Jesus Christ witnessed supernatural increase in his ministry here on earth because he learned obedience, even unto death. In short, obedience to him meant doing what the father told him to do without complaining, raising questions and doubting the goodness and wisdom of the father. Miracles of multiplication were a frequent occurrence in his ministry because he obeyed God’s instructions. You can do the same today. Obedience can cause you to achieve supernatural increase without strain or struggle.
The account of the miraculous draught of fish in Luke chapter five beautifully illustrates the power of obedience in connecting believers to the supernatural. Simon Peter had given the Lord his boat to sit in while teaching the eager crowd. After the service, Jesus wanted to reward Peter for his generosity to him and also to teach him and others the importance of obeying God. So he instructed Peter, “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.” This was a simple, clear and easy to follow instruction.
Be very careful when dealing with God, some of his instructions may sound very foolish or simple but they are not. Embedded or hidden within the instructions is the element of shaping or adjusting your character as well as revealing the gap between your ways and God’s ways. Peter thought that Jesus’ instruction was misguided. Jesus knew that Simon was a professional fisherman but he also knew that Simon did not yet really know who Jesus was.
Peter, underrating Jesus’ power over nature, started to argue against obeying Jesus’ instruction. “Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing,” Peter argued. Perhaps with an attitude of trying to prove Christ wrong, he later agreed to at least do it. When he laid down the nets in the deep, “they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake” (Luke 5:6). Peter and his colleagues were greatly amazed by the superabundance they obtained as a result of obeying God’s instruction. In fact Peter expressed his sinfulness in arguing with the Lord and in underrating the power of Jesus by kneeling down and asking him to depart from him a sinful man.
Obeying God does not cost you anything but it pays you great dividends.
-For feedback call Pastor Mairos on 0772889766 or email mairos78@yahoo.co.uk