To obey is better than sacrifice

 I want to tell you a story - or a testimony  - of something that happened to me many many years ago because it illustrates the point that I want to make today about what seems to be important to God.

Way back in the dark ages I was a student in St Andrews.  Its a very small town so most students either walked or cycled everywhere.  I had a faithful old bike which used to take me to lectures every day round the one way system which was necessary to prevent the town from completely seizing up with traffic.  I was a new and very zealous Christian recently baptised in the Holy Spirit and I was massively keen on trying to hear what God was saying.  I think I had read a book about turning over every decision to Jesus and on one particular day on the way back to my flat from lectures I thought I'd put this into practice.  So as I was cycling down the road at every junction I said to Jesus ' which way?'   I came to one junction and I felt that the Lord told me to turn left.  But turning left was taking me the wrong way up a one way street.  So I got off the bike and walked up the street instead.   

On that particular road there was a very posh glass and china shop which always had an amazing window display.  As I walked past the shop I suddenly had a picture in my mind of a crystal wine glass which was broken around the rim - the top of the glass was all jagged.  And I had a thought that God wanted me to break a wine glass and give it to my minister.  This was such a random thought that I dismissed it as being ridiculous and I carried on home.

The next evening it was homegroup.  Off I went to join the fifteen or so people in my group, only to find that our minister had decided to attend our group that night.  This had never happened before.  As soon as I walked into the room and saw him sitting there I started to feel all hot and bothered.  The thought came back to me strongly that I had to break a glass and give it to him.  But of course I was now in someone elses house - I could hardly go and get one of their glasses and break it!!   So I sat on the thought and we had a time of worship and all the time I was feeling worse and worse.

Eventually there was a moment of silence and I decided that the best I could do would be just to tell him what God had told me to do.  So I said ' yesterday I had a feeling that I should break a wine glass and give it to you'  At which point the housegroup leader jumped up and said '  I broke a wineglass yesterday!  It just sort of jumped off the shelf when I opened the cupboard door and broke.  Ive still got it in the kitchen bin.  Do you want it?'   I said yes - by this time feeling rather excited.  She went out and came back in with a wine glass broken exactly as I had seen it in my imagination - around the top.  She commented that it had broken unusually , normally if a glass drops you would expect the stem to break.

I took the glass and put it on the arm of the chair in which my minister was sitting.  I had no idea what it was about or what to do or say next.  He burst into tears.  Uncomfortable moment.  We sang a song or something till he had got himself together.  Then he explained that many years previously he had had a powerful vision of a wineglass ( him) and a very strong and powerful light coming down into it.  As he watched the vision he was sure the glass was just going to shatter into a million pieces.  But then the Lord spoke to him and said that He would never allow him to be broken and that he would be able to hold the glory of the presence of God without fear that it would destroy him.    That week he had felt close to breaking point.  When I put the glass on his chair God reminded him of the promise that he would not break.   Amazing eh?

That was probably my first big lesson about obedience.  I had partly done what God had told me to do.  I had got off my bike and walked past the shop which somehow put the image of the broken glass in my mind.   But then I had spectacularly failed because I didnt think God could possibly be asking me to do something so bonkers as to break a glass and take it to my minister.  If I had done that there and then I would probably have gone to his house, and he would have had that profound moment on his own, or with his wife there and not had to have it in front of a quarter of his congregation!!   But God is kind.  Because he was committed to getting the message across he prompted the minister to attend the Housegroup that night.   Because I didn't do what I should have done God had to tell someone else to do something and trust that they would be obedient where I wasn't.   Thankfully he was.   

At the very time of day I was heading home thinking that I couldn't possibly have heard God tell me to break a glass, a glass was falling out of a cupboard in the housegroup leaders house.  How kind is God? At housegroup the Holy Spirit then had to get on my case big time to prompt me to share about the glass and to remind the leader about the glass in her kitchen bin.   Finally God got the chance to really speak and bless as He had wanted to. There was something really important about the physical glass being present.  My minister took it home with him and Im sure he kept it as a reminder of what God had said.   Sometimes words don't quite cut it.  Actions and things are needed.

Doing what God tells us to do is pretty much the whole point of being a Christian.  All Jesus did when He walked the earth was listen to His Father and do what He was told to do.  Go to the Jordan and get baptised.  Go into the wilderness and fast until I tell you to stop.  Leave your home and go on the road.  Call that man to follow you. There's a coin in the mouth of a fish.  There's a small man up that tree.  Call Lazarus forth. Go to Jerusalem.  Let them arrest you.  Dont answer.  Lay down your life. 

There were people that Jesus didnt call as disciples.  People He didnt heal.  He was constantly listening to His Father and only doing what the Father was doing.  If we are constantly trying to listen to the Father there will be people we need to talk to and others we need to walk past.  There will be things which we should buy and things we shouldnt.  Things we should watch or listen to and things we shouldnt.  What He asks of you will be different from what He asks of me.  In my experience of trying to listen over the past 35 years it never seems to get any easier to obey the specific words of knowledge.  There is always that moment of hesitation, doubt, unbelief.  There is always the inward struggle of ' what if....?'   Which is ridiculous because nearly all of the time we have absolutely nothing to lose.   I remember sitting on a train one time and a girl on a seat in front of me was sobbing her heart out.  I asked God what was the matter and I felt He gave me a man's name.  So I leaned forward and I said something like ' excuse me, I hope you dont mind me asking but does the name............  mean anything to you?'    She looked at me as though I was mad and said no.  Then she got off the train.  😁   Id probably have been better just asking her if she was OK.   I felt a bit silly for five minutes and then the universe went on its merry way.

But when I was on a YWAM outreach in Switzerland God told me the name of a young man who was watching our street drama.  I saw him watching for quite a while but before it finished he turned to leave.  I chased after him.  I should have shouted his name but of course I didnt.  I caught up with him and asked his name ( I should have just told him his name but of course I didnt!)  He confirmed his name was what I thought it was and that his girlfriend was a christian and that he had been thinking about becoming a christian for ages and he agreed that he needed to pray the prayer there and then and I led him to the Lord!!  

So, the moral of the story is..... listen and do what you are told.  If you dont hear correctly its highly unlikely that anything terrible will happen.  But if you do hear right and you obey then miracles may occur. People might get saved. People might get healed.  Demons might flee.  Destinies might be forged.  And without a doubt you will be hugely blessed.   Go for it. And then let me know how you get on 😁