Blessed Obedience

Luke 6:22-23

Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. "Be glad (rejoice) in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets.

One Monday morning, as I was preparing for a lesson that I was to teach on Friday evening, I received a phone call. The person on the other end was upset with me because of some choices that I had made in my life. Some hard choices that I had to make after much prayer and fasting. I was ridiculed, talked about, downright disrespected. To them, I was anybody but a child of God. The phone call was to basically say, “We are no longer friends.” If it had come from anyone else, I probably would have been able to take it. But this came from someone that was very near and dear to my heart.

As I listened and waited for my turn to speak, the Holy Spirit gave me a Holy boldness that I had never experienced before. I simply thanked them for calling and that I would keep them lifted up in prayer. Any other time, oh yeah, they would have gotten a piece of my mind.

As I hung the phone up, the tears came streaming and I dropped to my knees. These were not tears of joy. They were tears of pain. I fell to the floor and cried out and looked up at my closet door where some scriptures were posted. I begin to quote Luke 6:22-23. In spite of my pain, in the midst of the tears, I begin jumping up and down and leaping for joy.

The lesson I was studying for Friday was titled, “Walking in Persecution.” Wow! It was almost as if Satan was saying, “Okay, let’s see if you are going to practice what you preach. Let’s see if you really believe what you say you do.” But God was saying, "I need you to trust me.”