Tag: betrayal

16–God Promises to Reward Obedience

It feels good to be rewarded. You get that bonus or raise for your hard work, a party for meeting a goal, and so on. We learned in the last post that God tests us to see if we will obey Him. He also gives rewards for our obedience. According to Dictionary.com (06/30/2022), obedience is being compliant and submitting to the requests of someone in authority. God is the supreme authority. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, and so on. God established laws as a boundary for the sinful nature we inherited when Adam disobeyed God’s command to not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden.

We have laws in our country to control the self-centered actions of people. For instance, there are many traffic laws we need to obey, and if we don’t, we will suffer a consequence. Many establishments have a code of conduct they expect their employees or customers to follow to maximize a pleasant and safe environment. Otherwise, you have chaos and fear. God’s laws and commands have the same purpose.

Obedience is hard when you want to be self-centered or prideful and don’t think you need to do what someone tells you to do. I had a problem obeying because I did not trust the people in authority. I also struggled to comply because I needed to be in control, which was a trust and pride issue. When I worked through betrayal issues and broke down the betrayal stronghold and the controlling stronghold, I was more willing to obey. To learn more, read Pt. 1: Forsaken? Betrayed? How to Trust Again.

Sometimes you are asked to do something that does not make sense. God the Father planned that His son was to die on a cross to pay the penalty for our sins, which does not make sense to us. Philippians 2:8 states, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  Do you think it is unreasonable for God to require us to be holy? 1Peter 1:14-16 states, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” Dictionary.com (6/30/2022) says that holy is to be spiritually pure, godly, and dedicated or devoted to the service of God. God promises to be our helper, so we can depend on Him to help us be holy. To learn more read Posts About Godliness.

So what are God’s rewards for obedience?

God Promises to Bless Those Who Obey Him

What does it mean to be blessed? Dictionary.com (6/30/2022) says that “blessed” is to be divinely or supremely favored, and favored is to be regarded or treated with preference or partiality and enjoy special advantages. Does this sound like something you would like? The following verses describe how God blesses those who obey and keep His ways:

Proverbs 8:32 “And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways.”

Psalm 119:2-3 “Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, 3who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways!”

James 1:25 “But the one who looks into the perfect law [love], the law of liberty [freedom], and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing [all that you do].”

Luke 11:28 “But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’”

Psalm 106:3 “Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!”

Deuteronomy 11:26-28 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, 28and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.”

Deuteronomy 12:28 “Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.”

Do you know what God requires of you? Do you obey so you can be blessed?

God Promises Eternal life with Him to Those Who Do His Will

Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

1John 2:17 “And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”

John 14:21 “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 

The will of God is what He expects us to do, namely, that we love Him with all our strength, heart, mind, and soul. By obeying His commands, we prove our love for God. John 14:23 states, “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” John 14:31 states, “I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.” God also requires that we love others as Jesus loves them. 1John 3:23 states, “And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” Loving others is hard because we are all sinners and hurt one another. I discuss this in greater detail in my website book. When we obey the truth found in God’s Word, we purify our souls as we obey and forgive those who hurt us and let go of resentment, then we can love from a pure heart. 1Peter 1:22 states, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.” To learn more about purifying your heart, read Love from a Pure Heart.

Conclusion

Obedience is difficult if you are self-centered, prideful, or don’t trust those in authority. But it is always best to obey God, not just for the rewards, but because He is good and knows our future and what is best for us. I don’t understand why God asked me to write because I never thought I was a good writer and didn’t know how to write. I obeyed, and I am still writing. I pray you are blessed by my writing and choose to obey God so you will be blessed with divine favor and spend eternity with Him.

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All verses are from the English Standard Bible. If you find my posts and website helpful, please share the links with your friends and family, hopeforcompletehealing.com. The information is copyright protected, and no part of the posts or my book may be reproduced without proper citation to Joyce Hanscom and this website.

If you find this website helpful, you will benefit from the latest book. You can order Breaking Mental Strongholds on Amazon. Also, check out my book called Fighting Unseen Battles on Amazon. I would love to hear what you think. To learn more about my book, read: How to Fight Unseen Battles.

Freedom from Insecurity, which is Protected by Betrayal and Control Strongholds

We all have some measure of insecurity, whether we realize it or not, because we live with and work with sinful, hurting people who hurt others, and we are not exempt. Insecurities are revealed by the negative reactions when they are triggered by what someone says, does, or does not do. For example, if someone found fault with me or with what I did, I would have an anxiety attack, and feel they didn’t like me, and that I will never be good enough. If someone did not give me the praise for doing something, then I would feel rejected and unappreciated, etc. Another example is when I would suggest doing something or going somewhere, and I would be ignored or discounted, then I would get angry and feel sorry for myself because I didn’t feel valued so I withdrew or acted out of anger to get control. Insecurities are also revealed by the negative tapes that are automatically played out when we feel out of control or discounted. The negative tapes could be, “I’ll never be accepted because I am different,” “I’ll never be able to accomplish anything because people don’t support me,” “What is wrong with me?” etc. Have you ever heard yourself say, “I can’t do this because…,” “This is too hard,” I’m not good enough,” “People can’t be trusted,” “I need to do this myself,” etc.

The strongholds of injustice and unfairness contribute to issues of betrayal and wanting to be in control. This is not uncommon with people who have been abused or grew up in dysfunctional families. I struggled with the control stronghold for several years, even though I would continually loose and put it off. I wanted to control what people did and what they thought of me, as well as control circumstances in order to prevent being hurt, disappointed, or even annoyed. I asked God why I kept dealing with this control issue, and He showed me that there was an outer mental stronghold of betrayal that protected my need to be controlling. The betrayal stronghold was built and kept in place by negative memories of betrayal by those who should have protected and loved me. These painful memories of betrayal developed insecurities, which are basically unhealthy beliefs and lies that perpetuates anxiety about what others do, not do, or think and say. For instance, I trusted that my parents, my spouse, and friends would love me and not hurt me, or lie to me, but they did. As a result, I disassociated and disconnected because I felt that I was not able to trust them. Note, some people should not be trusted and that is okay. Dictionary.com defines betray as 2) to be unfaithful in guarding, maintaining, or fulfilling; be disloyal to.

I believe there is no greater injustice than the betrayal of one’s sexuality because it wounds the soul the deepest. I also believe that the betrayal of sexuality causes the most damage to our self-esteem and self-worth because God created sexuality to be a beautiful act of vulnerability between two married people who love each other. And because our sexuality is an intimate part of us, any childhood sexual interference such as pornography, exposure to sexual acts (even in a movie), fondling, uncomfortable affection, making a child take on the role of a spouse, adult humor, and so on,  damages the very core of a child or teen’s being. This causes a person to feel confusion, shame, and humiliation, which then causes sexual violation secrets to be carefully guarded and deeply buried in the soul. These buried secrets continue to have a profound effect on how a person see’s themselves and others. I have known people who had great difficulty having a healthy marriage because of these secrets. A lot of books have been written about this topic and are a good resource if you have these buried secrets. Talking with a counselor is also very helpful but I want to caution you to be careful what counselor you choose to share your sexual violation secrets with. Not every counselor or pastor understands the damage of sexual betrayal and they may cause more confusion and betrayal.

Total healing and transformation happen only when we come to Jesus with our damaged sexuality and allow Him to restore our purity and respect. This is a supernatural act of healing that is received by faith. In fact, all painful memories of betrayal of all kinds can be healed, which in turn, heal insecurities and the need to be controlling.  This can be done by going through the prayer format to destroy strongholds found on my website: hopeforcompletehealing.com

The above statements are passages from my book called “Unseen Battles for Your Mind,” which is in the editing stage, and therefore, is not to be recopied without my permission.

If you find my posts and website helpful, then please share the links with your friends and family, hopeforcompletehealing.com. The information is copyright protected and no part of the posts or my book may be reproduced without proper citation to Joyce Hanscom.

Contact me at hopeforcompletehealing@gmail.com, and ask for a PDF of Eight Prayers from the Bible. The prayers are for the Spirit of wisdom, renewal, spiritual strength, knowledge of His will, virtues of God, non-believers, 23rd Psalm, and victory. Please leave your name so I know you are a real person making the request.

P.S.: Experiencing a lasting change in your life depends on having a right relationship with God the Father through believing in His Son Jesus Christ and obeying His command to love (1 John 3).