“At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.”
The High Priest had arrested the apostles and ordered them to stop preaching about Jesus. That night, an Angel busted them out of jail and told them to go back to the temple and keep preaching.
So, the apostles found themselves facing a dilemma that you and I face daily… the world pressuring us to do one thing… and God commanding us to do another. Just like you and me, they needed to decide what to do – knowing there would be a price to pay for their decision.
Obedience is better than sacrifice, and delayed obedience is disobedience. I am well aware of this, yet in this situation, I may have been tempted to delay… perhaps waiting to see what the reaction was to the jail break. Maybe rationalized that technically the angel didn’t say go right now, so I’ll prepare, and go later. I might have tried to find a verse that justified this so I could disobey self-righteously.
This “hesitating” is my specialty. I speak forcefully on bold obedience, and will certainly encourage you to act quickly and decisively when God commands you to move… But I tend to want to discuss it and negotiate when it is my turn to act. I can attempt to justify this, but it is simply hypocritical rebellion.
That’s not what the disciples did, they obeyed at daybreak. I need to have that same form of obedience. Their bold actions flustered the Sanhedrin and put the disciples in a position of power they would not have been in had they delayed.
What’s your default response when God tells you to do something controversial? Do you obey when instructions are clear, or do you “pray about it”… and try to negotiate a less costly course of action? Our most common struggle is not trying to know the will of God… it is deciding whether or not we are going to follow it. As soon as we learn that immediate obedience to God is the best path, our ministry will take on new power. Decide today whom you will follow… the world, or God… then obey and don’t look back.
“Prayer is good: but when used as a substitute for obedience, it is naught but a blatant hypocrisy, a despicable Pharisaism.” - Charles Studd
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