Obedience

He said Follow Me... So, I Am

At the start of this year, someone asked what the word of the year was. I’d never done that new year stuff before, intentionally, but it did get me thinking. The theme in 2025, seemed to be freedom. This year my initial reaction was obedience, and at first, I questioned myself and offered up my second thought because I had to wonder if that initial answer came from my tenancy towards a works-based system. But my initial answer nagged at me, so I asked the Lord. The Holy Spirit told me that the first thought, obedience, was in fact from Him.

Not obedience to earn His love, nor to earn salvation. It is a free gift He chose to give me, and if you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the gift is yours as well.

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9

So how then exactly is the request for obedience from the Lord?

Well, according to the book of James, faith without works is dead.

I could go on and on with the abundance of scripture on obedience, but those who don’t believe they need to do anything more than pray the one prayer won’t hear me anyway.

I believe that works is the outpouring of our faith, not to earn something, but simply because we love him. I’m beyond grateful that he had mercy on me, I’m overjoyed to walk in the freedom that Jesus provides, and I want to see other drowning people delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of His beloved Son.

Obedience is not a transactional relationship with God. It is a heart in alignment with Him.

He has my heart.

He has my mind.

He has my soul and He is my strength.

In the testimony I shared of how the Lord healed my body I said that if He healed me, I would in fact serve Him all the days of my life, and I meant it.

I take Jesus at his word. He said follow me, so I am.

Today everything has changed and it likely will again soon.

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It all started a ~ year ago when I said yes to the Lord and no to my flesh in ways I never had before. I did everything I never wanted to do. First, I started writing, what felt like very vulnerable thoughts, publicly on Substack and creating videos with my voice! Later, I started a podcast that I would never have chosen to start- all out of obedience. That was when doors started opening. The more I said yes to God and allowed the doors to shut on what I was doing, He hit what I call the fast forward button on my life.

I visited Tennessee for a conference in January of this year on healing and deliverance put on by people I had only just met on this platform. I had been looking for this for a long time and had not found a ministry that I felt comfortable with.

You can click here to check out my conversation with Clare Cunningham, right before the conference.

Now, only a few months later I suddenly found myself walking away from everything in the world that I know, picking up and moving from Florida to Tennessee. I’m currently living in the Mission House in Nashville, and I have the honor and privilege to pray with people through the healing and deliverance ministry that brought me here. It is amazing and humbling to say the least.

No, it is not a cult. Nothing I am doing is outside of what I had been doing on my own with the Lord at a smaller scale before. Now I’m with other followers of Christ that I can learn from and grow with!

Needless to say, the Growing Together In Christ podcast is on hold for the next few months, unless God has an alternative plan.

I have been writing my thoughts but not publishing them. I will start to share how it has all happened because the Lord has been blowing my mind and maybe it will help someone else. The truth is I’ve struggled to publish newsletters because I still have the old belief that if I can’t do it 100%, I shouldn’t do it at all. But I am continuing to work to overcome my desire for perfection and make it good enough.

The Lord can do with it what he wills, just as He always has.

I can’t wait to see what the Lord does next. Each step forward in obedience reveals more to me about how very much He loves us and that His word is as true today as it ever was! I hope you will come along too.