Hi, and welcome to Five Word Prayers Daily, a five-day-a-week daily devotional where we share the word, prayers, and our heart.

I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me, which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent.

Well, this week starts week two of a deeper dive into Deuteronomy 30-20, Moses' famous third address to the Israelites, and looking

at the three things Jesus said to them and us that we would have to choose to do in order to have

a thriving life. Last week, we looked at the choice to love, and this week we're looking at what I

believe to be maybe the toughest choice of all.

But, man, what an important one. I'll be right back to talk about it.

So our point of discussion today and all this week is going to be about obedience.

Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy, this tipping point decision between life and death,

blessing and cursings is your choice to love and then your choice to obey God.

Obedience, I think, is one of our very hardest things, if not in many ways, our hardest thing.

Because to obey God, even when it's inconvenient or we don't want to, or especially when to us

he doesn't make sense, is a dying to ourselves in the strongest way. It's saying, I trust you more

than me. I love you more than me. I want you more than me.

And our flesh fights against that type of surrender. But a life of following Jesus is a life that

requires our obedience. It's not a free-for-all life where we get to choose what we want to do

when we want to do it and how we want to do it. It's a constant

deferring. God is in charge of my life and I have no rights. And if we're honest, we'll admit,

that is really hard. I can't think of obedience without thinking of the story in Genesis 22.

When Abraham is, remember, instructed by God to take his son, his long-awaited son, Isaac, by the way,

take him to the mountain to sacrifice him.

We're going to dive into some other interesting aspects about this tomorrow.

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