For the past few months (February), we’ve been learning on Newness. What it really means when we say “Oh! I’m about to enter a new season.”
What it looks like to move from the old into the New, and very importantly, the posture we must attain when it is time to enter The New.
We started with The Posture of Obedient Departure, where God calls you out before He shows you in. A call into the New is first a call to leave the familiar. You don’t carry the old into what God is trying to build next. Something always dies at the entrance of The New.
Then we saw The Posture of Faithful Endurance, where many people get stuck. Not because God failed, but because the gap between departure and fulfillment is real. It is in this stage that we begin to see the wilderness as a delay instead of a passage. And this is where endurance becomes necessary; you can’t detest your passage into the New. You must recognize it and walk accordingly.
After that, we spoke about The Posture of Humble Listening, where God begins to give instructions, but often in layers. We may not get loud or complete instructions at once, but we must stay teachable and very, very not rigid.
We moved to The Posture of Courageous Alignment, where what God has said becomes the only option in your heart. No Plan B, no negotiation with fear. No matter how difficult it is, we move courageously into what He has told us.
Then we discussed The Posture of Prayed Preparedness, because you can hear God and still not enter if prayer is not sustaining you. Prayer is what keeps your spirit sensitive and aligned through the process.
We also looked at The Posture of Faith in Action, because faith is not just hearing, it is moving. But moving only within what God has spoken, not ahead of Him. Faith is agreeing with God and moving!
Then finally, The Posture of Dependence on God, where even after doing all of the above, you still learn that you cannot carry the outcome by yourself. God must remain the source in every step of the journey. You must not be in a hurry to move and be okay with saying, “I am still waiting for God.”
Now, we will be discussing the 8th and final posture when entering The New.
I will like to call it an encapsulation of all!
8. The Posture of Complete and Swift Obedience
For this posture, I feel like it is God drawing our ears over and over.
You cannot miss this! It is the full expression of everything we’ve been saying since we started this teaching. You cannot bypass it.
In fact, it is what has caused delay for so many people, and confusion.
I was asking myself this question, and it is one I think we should all ask often:
Have I obeyed completely?
Did I obey swiftly?
You are waiting for the next big instruction but have you done the little one that God has asked you to do? Or you’ve been making (valid) excuses
Abraham could not have moved to the point of expecting a child from God if he had not at first obeyed the instruction to leave his homeland. Not just leaving, leaving immediately!
Again, you see those questions I highlighted up there 👆, you must keep asking yourself per time.
It is also not either or; your obedience can be complete and yet late.
In fact, I’d say late obedience is disobedience!
Yes, you disobeyed God
I think we need to get very uncomfortable with this truth and not sugarcoat things to ourselves.
I disobeyed God,
By arriving too late,
By wasting time and not doing it when He said,
I disobeyed God.
Because in the things of God, obedience is not only about what He said, but also about when you respond.
Every word has a time attached to it.
My obedience and response to God is inside of a designated timeframe for that matter. If I miss the timeline, I have scattered something. And then I start crying that I did everything.
Did I really do everything?
“So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.” [Genesis 12:4 NKJV]
Just look at our Fathers of Faith.
Look at!
This is the place where there is no negotiation, no selective obedience, and no delayed response. It is a fully yielded heart that responds to God without holding anything back.
This is how you know if your heart is yielded oooo
This is how!
Complete obedience means there is nothing you are editing in God’s instruction.
No partial compliance.
No “I will do this part but adjust that part.”
No backup plan sitting quietly in the background.
No something came up and the tiny tweak I added is not really important; it changes nothing.
How do you know what changes something or not?
Are you the one who orchestrates the journey of your life?
Again, you see this last part, the Lord says to draw our ears,
Myself inclusive.
Many of us have failed here.
This is where the issue is, our inability to see through the word of the Lord, for whatever reason, has been to our detriment.
Look at Saul.
God gave him instructions through Samuel in 1 Samuel 15, but he partially obeyed. He did something close, but not exact. In fact, he thought he was doing it for God:
“And Saul said, 'They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.” [I Samuel 15:15 NKJV]
But see how God felt about the same situation:
“I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night.” [I Samuel 15:11 NKJV]
God greatly regretted.
Why?
Saul disobeyed
Do we even know the weight of these words?
Do we?
“Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?” And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” [I Samuel 15:19-21 NKJV]
Just look at 😭😭😭😭😭
Look at Saul saying he obeyed.
But he tweaked something,
Just a small detail,
Just one thing, but it was disobedience.
Even though he felt like he was doing something for God, he was disobeying!
And I am sure a lot of us know the scripture that follows. It is one we’ve learnt since childhood.
But I need us to keep it close to our ears and hearts in this season.
Again, the Lord has sent me to draw our ears (mine inclusive) 😭:
“So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.” [I Samuel 15:22 NKJV]
You cannot edit the instruction
You cannot delay the instruction
Abraham moved even though he didn’t know where to.
He just kept going
Stop saying I don’t understand the instruction in full or He has not told me all
If He says move with X, then move with X
Let X be enough for you right now
It is trust in God
And please stay inside of timing.
“I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.” [John 9:4 NKJV]
There is a “while” attached to the instruction.
There is a timing inside obedience.
I must do the works while inside of the timing provided for it because a time comes when it then becomes impossible to.
“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:” [Ecclesiastes 3:1 NKJV]
Every instruction carries a time.
And when you miss the time, even if you eventually act, something has shifted.
It takes God’s mercy to course correct.
Again, this is where many of us have missed it.
Our problem is not that we have not heard anything, or God has not revealed
It is that for whatever reason (that we’ve validated to ourselves), we’ve missed response and timing.
I will end this teaching with this:
On that matter the Lord has spoken to you
On this door that you’ve been knocking on for a while now
Have you truly obeyed?
Have you?
Because at the end of everything we’ve shared — from departure to endurance, from listening to alignment, from prayer to action, from dependence to obedience, all of it comes down to this one posture:
A heart that obeys God and moves immediately without delay.
Complete and Swift Obedience!
This is the only way we enter THE NEW.
“His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” [John 2:5 NKJV]
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