Small confession: After last week’s message, I felt like I left some meat on the bone. Do you know what I mean? Jonah’s begrudging obedience at the start of Jonah 3 is a huge moment in the story. There are some much needed lessons for us today, and I felt like there was one more thing I should have unpacked.

Here’s what we covered Sunday:

Truth 1: God is gracious. Rinse & repeat.
Truth 2: Obedience leads to freedom.
Truth 3: We will have to grind out a mature faith.

It’s this 3rd truth I want to camp on for just a bit. There’s no way around the truth that God will call out of us self-discipline. (It is a fruit of the Spirit, by the way.) It may be the discipline to serve, to keep quiet, to speak truth, to give time, to give money, to show love, or to invest in another person. But you can be sure that God has put SOMETHING in your life to teach you how to grind out your faith.

At some point, a deep and mature faith moves beyond basing obedience on feelings. Real growth and real joy lay beyond the grind. If we stick at it, two things are going to happen. Eventually, our HAVE TO will change to a GET TO. That’s God changing our hearts through our obedience. We talked about that on Sunday.

Here’s the second thing that I didn’t quite get to on Sunday: Our obedience will impact others around us.

Ever since I got the news about my weight gain, I knew there were some things in my life that had to change. So every day I workout. Every. Single. Day. I haven’t missed a day since January 1. Amy calls me the “Gym Nazi” now. At first, I seriously messed up our family schedule. I made us late to dinners. I frustrated my family when they all wanted to sit down and relax. I was going to work out. I broke our in home stair-climber, had it fixed, then broke it again. I’ve had to altar my schedule at times. I’ve had to get up earlier. I’ve had to work later.

There’s not a single person in our home that hasn’t been effected. Some of that has been positive. Amy is working out with me most of the time. We feel better. But some of it…

It’s impossible to obey in a vacuum.

When we start obeying God and grinding out obedience, it is going to impact those around us. Some of this impact is going to be messy. It’s going to change schedules. It’s going to change priorities. It’s going to cause some internal conflict and external conflict. We may have to end some relationships. We may have to significantly alter others.

Some of this will be received, and some won’t. And those who DO receive it will have to go thru the same process of grinding out THEIR faith.

And at this point, we are tempted to think, “This is just miserable. Why do this?”

But when you are in it, you know better than that. You know better because you are experiencing the grace of God first hand. And it’s incredible. Life giving. Wonderful.

And He doesn’t just do it once. He overwhelms us with His grace. Over and over again.

Rinse and repeat.

And this is where we experience the life He wants for us. And it’s good. Very good.