This evening, the Holy Spirit will be taking us on a journey on understanding Instruction-driven Discipleship. How that instruction is critical and the centre-piece of discipleship. And we are going to start by looking at Proverbs chapter 16, we will start by reading one important verse there. Proverbs 16:20. In the New King James Version the Bible says: "He who heeds the word wisely will find good, And whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he." He who heeds the word, he who listens, he who hearkens; he who adheres to the word wisely, applying it, will find good, And whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he.

 

Listen To Podcast: INSTRUCTIONS-DRIVEN DISCIPLESHIP

 

In the Good News Translation it says; "Pay attention to what you are taught." When I first found this, I found it very instructive because it helps us to understand the centre-piece of discipleship. "Pay attention to what you are taught, and you will be successful." King James said "He who heeds the word", he who adheres, he who obeys instructions, he pays attention to what he is taught, it says that one will become successful. He will find good. Trust in the Lord and you will be happy. Now this verse is letting us into how instruction is so vital. What do you pay attention to? When you are being taught, what are the things that are being given out to you? They are instructions.

 

When God is speaking to you, He gives you instructions, not advise, not counsel as it were. They are instructions, and when you pay attention to those instructions, that Scripture says you will be successful. In this our discipleship journey, for us to be successful, we must pay attention to instruction, it is so critical. For you to move from one phase to another in discipleship, it is that you have succeeded in paying attention or obeying an instruction. The way the spiritual kingdom is structured, your progress is premised on instructions obeyed and lessons learnt. Now in the kingdom of God, you don't move like in a circular school, where you move from maybe primary one to primary two because at the end of a session, you sat for an exam and then you passed. So, you have to wait for three months and you passed. That is not the way it is in the kingdom.

 

In spiritual things, it is about instructions. Once you are able to receive instructions and you obey and adhere to it, you move, you make progress. That is how it works, and we are going to see a classical example in Luke chapter 10, Jesus gave us an example in that place on how instruction is the bedrock of discipleship, it is the foundation upon which progress is measured in discipleship, instructions obeyed. Luke 10:1-16. The Bible says: "After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go." Now, let us understand this very first verse.

 

Some things had happened, and then it said "the Lord appointed", the Lord called to Himself, the Lord separated; He appointed seventy and then He sent them two by two before His face. So, they were not going to go on that assignment or that mission outside Him. They were going before His face. And you wonder why was that so particularly written, and why is it so important? As a disciple of Jesus Christ; when He sends you out, you are sent before His face. So, everything you are doing, you are doing it before Him, and open before Him. He is weighing your intent; He is weighing your actions. Don't think because He has sent you out, He has turned His back, No! You are before His face. And that is how spiritual disciple is so critical. It is different from circular discipleship.

 

It is so sensitive, because everything you are doing as a disciple of Jesus, you are doing it before His face. No wonder some people, the Bible says, God cannot be mocked. Whatsoever a man does, the same he will reap. So if you decide to obey instructions shabbily, or you refused to obey instruction, you will reap what you sow. Jesus cannot be mocked. You can't pretend to be His disciple, and you are doing things He has not instructed, it cannot work. No wonder Jesus said in the last days, some will come to Him and will shout; "Lord, Lord, in your name, we carried our miracles, in your name, we heal the sick, in your name, the lame walk" and He will say to them "I don't know you, you workers of iniquity", you were not before my face.

 

So understand this, everything you are doing as a disciple of Christ Jesus, whether you are still with Him or He has sent you out, you are doing it before His face. "He sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go." That is very sensitive. These are places He Himself wanted to go, this is His assignment, and this is His work. So, He Himself would have gone, but He sent you. That is why the Bible makes us to understand that we are co-laborers with Christ. It is Christ that is laboring; we are only co-laboring with Him. That is why we are before His face. That is why the Bible makes us to understand in the book of Daniel, when he was talking about different kingdoms. Daniel said there will be a stone that was cut without human hands, it will crush the other kingdoms and it will become a mountain. And he said something about that kingdom that it will not leave it into the hands of men. And that is the same thing Jesus is doing.

 

Jesus will not leave His mission or His assignment in the hands of men. This is why Jesus cannot be held ransom, if He sends you and you do not go, He sends another. He cannot be held ransom. Don't think you are doing Him a huge favor, it is His assignment. It is His mission, it is His work, He is the head of the body. It is wherever He turns the body to that is the direction the body goes. If you say you don't want to go, then you are no longer part of the body, it is as simple as that. So, it is about His assignment, it is about where He Himself, that is how sensitive discipleship in the kingdom is.

 

You don't become a disciple in the kingdom and you get freedom. Like it is done in the world, you know when somebody goes and become an apprentice under a man, a master, and after some years, haven understudied the man; and he now knows the work, then he is given freedom. It is not that way in the kingdom. In the kingdom of God and in spiritual discipleship, we are always before His face, there is no freedom. You cannot become independent. You cannot know Jesus so much that you will say "you want to be without Him." No, It does not work that way. It is His labor, His field, the people are His sheep and you are always before His face.

 

verse 2: "Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." Now Jesus is giving us an idea into why discipleship is a continuous journey, why you and I are recruited into discipleship. Why we follow Jesus is because the harvest is much, it is truly very great and the laborers are few. So when you become a disciple of Jesus, you are accepting a call to become a laborer. And the laborer do not come on their own. Jesus said "no one comes to me except the Father draws them." That is why He said "pray the Lord of harvest, the Father, to send out laborers into His harvest." And in verse 3 He says: "Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves."

 

Now these are instructions from this point. Jesus started giving them instructions. He started with their identity. The first instruction He gave them is about their identity. Number one, you are laborers. Number two, the kind of attitude that you must portray in this discipleship is that you must go out as lambs, you must be lambs and you are going in the midst of wolves. Your attitude, your disposition, your personality must be that of a lamb. You must be humble and see yourself as nothing. You must count all things as dung for the excellence of Christ, you must submit yourself under the Mighty hand of God, you must allow God to be your shepherd, you must not highjack the process from God, you must not highjack from Jesus, you must be submissive.

 

If you look at the characteristics of a lamb, lambs are submissive; they are gentle, humble and quiet. And that is the kind of attitude that Jesus said we must have. And He started given instructions, from verse 4, it says: "Carry neither money bag." Now notice He was not giving them advice. This is where instructions come in; He was teaching them how to go about the assignment. Please I want to admonish you. Our God is a jealous God. When Moses was instructed to build a tabernacle, there was a pattern. God gave Moses instructions about the pattern of the Tabernacle. When Noah was going to build an ark, God gave him specifications and pattern on how to build it. There is no assignment given to you by God that does not come with instructions.

 

You will fail at the assignment if you fail at the instructions. Because if they had gone without doing these things that Jesus said, they would have failed woefully at the assignment. No matter their skill, no matter their disposition; or their personal excellence, it would not have cut it. It says carry neither money bag, don't go with your existing idea, don't go with your project management idea, don't go with your chattered accountant certificate. He said to them; ^"Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road." This is the instruction. "But whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’" This is what you should say. Verse 6-7 says, "And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you. ⁷ And remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer" (Jesus was emphasizing who they are, the laborer) is worthy of his wages."

 

Don't feel bad if you are eating and drinking there, I didn't tell you to go there fasting, eat and drink whatever is presented to you for the laborer is worthy of his wages. "Do not go from house to house." ⁸ Whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. ⁹ And heal the sick there, and say to them." Now, We can see that Jesus was detailed in His pattern. He was detailed in what He was telling them. "And say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’" This is the message! Don't tell them "I have seen Jesus before, this is the color of His skin", this is what you should say to them; "‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’"

 

^{10 But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘The very dust of your city which clings to us we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.’ 12 But I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that Day for Sodom than for that city. 13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades. 16 He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me (don't fight), and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.”}

 

That is the instruction He gave the seventy. God always has instruction for His disciples. Everyone that follows God must be instruction sensitive. You can't say that you have followed God so far, your maturity in the kingdom will be displayed by how sensitive and obedient you are to instructions. It shows your maturity. God does not play with His instructions because His instruction is His word. Heaven and earth may pass away but not one title of His word will go unfulfilled. I want us to see Genesis chapter 2, just keep your fingers on that Luke chapter 10, we are coming back to it, to see what happens thereafter. But we want to see that Genesis chapter 2, how God, the first discipler, how He discipled Adam.

 

^{15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”}

^{Genesis 2:15- 17}

 

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded, no advice. "The Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat." So, the commandment is, you can eat every other thing, you can eat every other thing you see but in 17, He said but, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die, that was the instruction of God. God was directly discipling Adam and God gave an instruction. He Himself planted the garden. This message is deep and I want you to hear it with the ears of your spirit. He who has an ear let him ear what the spirit says to the church.

 

The same way Adam did not plant Eden. God put him in Eden. The same way, you did not plant this earth, you did not plant your marriage, you did not plant that ministry, God gave it to you. He planted it, and He put you in it to tend and to keep it. You will only survive, be sustained in that which God has planted to the degree of the instructions of God that you obey. Many people have lost their gardens because of disobedience. So many things God planted and put you in it and you messed it up because of disobedience. Instruction is important, no wonder Prophet Samuel said to Saul, do you think God is interested in your sacrifices? To obey is better than sacrifice. To hearken is better than fatted calves and the same thing God is saying, God does not necessarily need your money. If God asks you to give money, it’s because He wants to bless you in return.

 

So, when God gives you instructions, it’s not something you should debate, it’s to obey because that is how you can perpetually remain under His discipleship. Immediately Adam lost the instruction, he lost the Garden. Immediately Samson lost the instruction, he lost the strength because the instruction of God is tied to his glory, to His provision. If you lose His instruction, you will lose the provision. If you don’t do what He asked you to do when He asked you to do it., you will lose the provision. No wonder when God told Elijah, go to the brook called Cherith, stay there, drink of the brook and ravens will come and feed you there and when the brook dried up, an instruction came.

 

"Elijah stand up, go to Zarephath, I have commanded a widow to feed you there", not here. There! And Elijah rose up and went to Zarephath, because he obeyed the instruction, he connected with the provision. It’s when you obey the instruction of Christ Jesus that you connect with His provision. Jesus said to His disciples, tarry here in Jerusalem until you are endued with power. The instruction is to tarry; the provision is the Holy Spirit. If they had been in Ephesus, the Holy Spirit will not go to Ephesus. He would have come to Jerusalem and He would not have met them there and they would have missed the provision of the Holy Spirit.

 

For you to continue to walk with God, to continue to walk with Christ, following His footsteps, you must follow His instructions. That’s how it works. So, this discipleship of Christ, Christ discipling us is tied to instruction. Pay attention to what Jesus is teaching you, pay attention to what He is saying to you, pay attention to His words to you. God is speaking to you. He is speaking to you. He is speaking to you about your life partner. He is speaking to you about the kind of work you should be doing and you are saying ‘God but I can do anything now’. You can do anything. If you do anything and you do it the way you like. You will miss out. The thing is, it’s not that God will not love you, He will still love you but you will miss out on His provision. You will miss out.

 

When Adam lost the provision of God which was the Garden of Eden, He started toiling, he started struggling, he started tilling the ground. When he was obeying the instruction of God, provision was available. Anything he wanted, he ate. Anything he wanted, he had. He had fellowship, direct access to God because he was obedient. And some of us are asking, ‘God, why are you not speaking to me? God, why am I not seeing you like the days I used to see you?’ Are you obeying him? How many instructions have you kept? Go back and check, all the things He said to you, how many have you done? You can’t work with God and disdain his instructions. It can’t work because you can’t separate God from His instructions. You disdain His instructions. You have disdained God. I want us to go back to that Luke chapter 10 from verse 17 to 20

 

¹⁷ Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” ¹⁸ And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹ Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. ²⁰ Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” ²¹ In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.

Luke 10:17-21

 

Then the seventy returned with joy. This is what happens when you obey instructions. You will return with joy, testimony, saying Lord even the demons are subject in your name. That’s what we saw and He said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. When you were obeying my instructions, I saw Satan defeated. You defeat the devil when you obey God. What the devil does not want you to do is to obey God because he knows that if you should obey God, he would lose his influence over your life. No wonder he fought tooth and nail to make sure that Adam disobeyed God. You wonder what was the devil looking for, why was he gisting with Eve so much, why was he manipulating Eve, it’s just to make them disobey because once you can disobey, there is a crack in the wall, then he gains access.

 

Jesus said, I saw Satan fall and this is what happens when we obey. This is what happens when we obey the instructions of God. Satan will always fall like lightning from heaven. He said behold, I give you the authority. When you obey, you are given more responsibility; you are able to progress in your discipleship, when you obey! He said, behold! See I give you the authority, more responsibility, more provision, more reward. Behold I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, over all the works of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. When we look at some children of God, some sons of the kingdom and we see the kind of access, the level of access in which they walk in, we want to envy them and say wow! How come I can’t walk in this kind of access? Have you obeyed the kind of instructions that God give them? Do you know the kind of instruction God gives them in the secret place? Do you know how they carry it out because it’s when they obey that they move into another level of access? God is no respecter of persons, whatsoever a man sows, that he will reap.

 

God is not a respecter of persons, if you sow to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption. If you sow to the Spirit, you will of the Spirit reap eternal life. Spiritual things are not dicey; they are not things that you say okay, maybe its rock, scissors and stone. No! They are straight forward as that. You obey God’s instruction. You gain access to higher heights. He said nevertheless, there is another realm, there is another phase. Jesus is now making them understand, see don’t just sit down and feel you have attained. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, for there is more. That the spirits are subject to you but rather rejoice, this is the major deal, rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. The names of overcomers, people that obey the instructions of God and triumph over the devil, their names are written in the book of life in heaven and that should be our goal.

 

Don’t say, ah! Let me even take it easy, am I the one that killed Jesus? No! You can’t walk in discipleship like that. You say, I have tried, look at that sister, she is not even doing up to me, why do I want to kill myself? No! You are not killing yourself. You are gaining access. You are gaining access in your spirit. You are laying your life down at the altar of love for God. You know this evening, I was just looking at it and something happened to me and I was just wondering, I was just you know, almost getting worked up and I remembered the love of God. I said, God, even if the whole world crumbles, because I have an assignment for you, my mind will remain intact, my joy will remain full because you don’t deserve my worst, you deserve my best and that’s the consciousness because the devil will always what to make you feel that your own is too much, that you are even the worst of everyone. No! Always remember the love of God for you, remember the love of this Father.

 

What has He done to you that you will disobey Him? Rather He has done everything for you so why not obey Him? Verse 21, in that hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said every time you obey the Father. Every time, you obey God’s instructions. Jesus rejoices because remember, He is the mediator, He is the reconciliatory, He is the one that said to the Father, see, Father pour your love on them, they are worth it. So, every time you show Jesus truly that the sacrifice of the Father is worth it, He rejoices. In that hour, not the following day, to see that, that thing was really tied to what happened. In that hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent. You know how people feel that they are so wise and they are so prudent that the instruction of God is foolishness to them and Jesus was rejoicing.

 

He said I rejoice that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes, babes like us. That it looks as if we don’t know what we are doing, obeying and following God but really, we are losing our lives and we are gaining it in Christ. That’s what we are doing. Even so Father for so it seems good in your sight, it seemed good in the eyes of God to reveal these things to babes, the word of God is foolishness to the wise. They feel, eh! God now say you should stand in one position and you should bend down, how does it add up, it’s not logically sound. We don’t do things that are logically sound, the just shall live by faith, we live by faith. In Him we live, in Him we move, in Him we have our being. His instruction might not make sense to you but to me it means the world because that’s true, we survive on His instructions. We would have been dead, we would have been done, the devil would have had a fill day on us but for His instructions.

 

So, for you to become a true disciple, if you don’t want to lose your discipleship walk, you must obey instructions. You must be instruction sensitive. You must not toy with instructions. The things God says don’t, don’t! The things that He says do, do! That’s the way in the kingdom, the word of the King is law. So His instructions are not advise, they are not counsel, they are life. Pay attention to what you are taught and you will be successful. In this walk with Christ, you will be successful, if only you will pay attention to what He is teaching you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ has appeared to all, teaching us. Pay attention to what the grace of Jesus is teaching you, pay attention, obey! Hearken! Walk in it and you will be successful.

 

I pray that will be our experience in the name of Jesus.

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Lara Gboyega Adedeji!

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