Guidance Light

Gratitude and Subservience

• Jonathan Cordero • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Waking up each day with a heart full of thanks might seem an idealistic dream, but it's a transformative practice I've come to cherish. Join me, Jonathan John Cordero, as I unravel the beauty of gratitude and subservience through the lens of biblical teachings, sharing how even in the darkest moments, recognizing the blessings from God can illuminate the path to true contentment. Facing life's trials with the spirit of Job, I'll delve into the power of unwavering faith and the profound sense of purpose that emerges when we trust in the divine plan, sharing personal reflections that testify to the fulfillment found in surrendering to God's will.

This episode isn't just a conversation; it's an invitation to a deeper, more meaningful connection with your faith. We'll navigate the intricate dance of seeking God's guidance, understanding our missteps, and embracing the lessons of patience exemplified by Abraham. Discover the crucial role of gratitude in everyday life as we explore Psalm 143:10 and consider the possibility that our struggles are divinely orchestrated. Whether you're opening your heart to Jesus for the first time or seeking a reaffirmation of your faith, this episode promises a communal moment of prayerful reflection, peace, and the rejection of fear, guiding us together toward a future rich with spiritual growth and grace.

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Jon:

Good day and thank you for listening to Guidance Light, the podcast channel that covers God's gospel devotionals and talks about the love of Jesus Christ. I'm your host, jonathan John Cordero, and this is season one, episode four. The title is Gratitude and Subservience. Now, before I begin, I want to first say thank you to God. I thank God for each and every single one of you that have come to listen to God's words, blessed by his name, that grants me the voice to utter his words and share whatever meaning or message he is trying to send out to you. May his words lift, encourage and give you peace on this day or night, whenever you're listening to it. In Jesus' name, I pray amen.

Jon:

So today we're going to be diving right into Scripture as we're about to start on this episode. I am feeling alive today. I'm feeling the fire of God today and I want to share it with you, and I pray that the words that I put through in this episode will help you feel it too, for God is with us and he's moving in ways we can't even imagine, and I want to go over that with you and how he's going to help us learn and understand as we continue to be grateful and serve him. So today we're talking about gratitude. I prayed and prayed about this episode before I jumped on the mic to be able to ask God God, what do you want me to talk about today? What is it that you want me to go over that may reach the heart of whoever's listening? Perhaps I'm talking to all of you, perhaps I'm talking to just select few of you, and whoever it is, I pray that this message reaches you in the way that God is intending it, because he loves us and he wants us to follow him and he wants us to know that he is here for us and that he sees our troubles, he sees our woes and he is there to make it better.

Jon:

So we're going to jump right into one of my favorite stories in Scripture, which is the story of Job. Job is a pretty relatable guy in the story in the Bible. If you've never read the Bible and you don't know who Job is, job is a gentleman who is a very devout person, who follows God, and he's been blessed. He is blessed because he has a family, land, servants, he has cattle, he has all kinds of things that have been given to him, and in the Bible it talks about how the devil approaches the Lord and says I bet you I can make him curse your name if I take away everything he has, and God actually takes on that bet. There is a lesson in that as well, and I'm not going to get into that today. We can go into a whole different episode in just that, but I'm not going to do that to you guys.

Jon:

Today I'm going to be going into a different approach on this. That is going in the aspect of gratitude. Where does that lead us? Every single day that we wake up, most of us the first thing we think about is why am I getting up so early, man? Is there anything I could do to call off of work? Or I could avoid the traffic going to work? Or perhaps I'm opening my eyes and the first thing on my thought is a cup of coffee. What if you woke up and you said it? Thank you.

Jon:

Thank you to God for waking up to another day, to another day that we could follow His will and we can do something for someone else that may save their souls for eternity. Following His will, giving us the ability to reach out to others that we would not suspect that we would be able to do otherwise. In my first episode I spoke about a testimony about a gentleman that I was told by God that would be needing my help, and God provided the means, the way to be able to reach out to Him without the experience, and I am extremely thankful for it. But there's a lesson in it because, outside of the gratitude, god also wants us to learn. See, he has a plan for all of us and His will, in our lives, every single day, is going to guide us in the direction that we need to go. He has a plan and a will set on earth to guide us in the ways that he wants. He has planted a seed inside of us that only he knows. Nobody knows your seed except God. God is willing and able and ready to teach us. We are grateful, lord, today for these words that you're giving us, because he is here to be able to tell us that we have a purpose. He is the architect, he is the builder and he has a purpose for each and every single one of us, and we are grateful Now.

Jon:

In the story of Job, job loses everything. In the Bible, he loses absolutely everything. The devil takes everything but his life, for God told him that you can take absolutely everything he has, but you cannot take his life. His life belongs to me. Job goes through and he loses his house. He loses his family, his kids, his servants, his money, his status, his health. He loses everything. But yet at the end of it all, when all that Job had left to lose was his life, he looked up and said bless him, are you Lord. You are the one who gives and you are the one who takes away. Blessed be your name. And at that point in time there's a meaning and something to be taught from just that phrase and what happened afterwards. But let's talk about who we are and how we've reacted when we lose things.

Jon:

I'm in a position in my life right now where I have given absolutely everything up to follow God and I am so happy that I've done that. I am grateful to God for the opportunity to be able to do that. I am grateful to God for the opportunity to be able to give everything up, to lose it all, just to follow him. How many of us are willing to throw everything we've ever worked towards away just to say I am following God full-heartedly? Who can say that? And it takes a certain level of faith. And this level of faith is obtainable. It's not like it's not reachable. You can make this step and make it happen in faith, and know that God is with you, no matter what you do. God is with you to the end. He is going to get you, he's going to guide you, he's going to sustain you, he's going to provide for you, for God has never failed us and never will. And in the book of Job, this has become so apparent as you read through it. See, we say oh, I want to be grateful, I want to serve God, but I just don't know how. I don't know what I need to do to serve God. I want to be able to do it. I want to be able to say what you guys say. I want to be able to go to church and do all these wonderful things, but I just don't know how. God will show you. God will show you.

Jon:

In the book of Job Job six, verse 24, job, who has been devout, who has lost everything and has remained faithful to God, says teach me and I will be silent. Help me understand what I did wrong. I'm gonna pause for a second there. Those are powerful words, because not once, in the midst of his chaos, in the midst of his storm, not once did Job look at God and say God, this is impossible. I am going through it, lord. It's impossible that you exist. Because I'm going through it, lord. I am going against improbable odds. I am sick, I've lost my family, I've lost my kids, I've lost my land, I've lost my servants. Lord, I have lost it all. How can you say that you exist? Not once. But yet he looked towards God. He put his problems in God, he gave it up to him, just like he gave everything else, because he is the one that takes and gives away. And God said I will deliver him, he will deliver us all. But Job stopped and in the midst of all his chaos, in the midst of his world crumbling apart, he reached out to God and God said teach me, lord, teach me, and I will be silent. I, he is taking accountability for himself to know that what is happening isn't due to the physical concept. What's the problems of these worlds? That it is a spiritual thing, that he himself needs to accept the Lord and needs to understand that the Lord is the only one who can deliver him. And in this piece of scripture he says I will be silent, for he does not need to speak about his problems to all others. He doesn't need to bring up his problems to all others. His problems are apparent. It could be seen. He is so far in the storm that it is visible.

Jon:

Imagine if you saw someone who has it all, who has it all, who has money, who has status, who has power to see them begging on the side of the street. Would you need to ask him if something was wrong? No, you would be able to see it. You would be able to tell if something was wrong If you saw that person on the side of the street begging when you knew that man or woman used to be driving amazing things and used to be doing amazing things with people with status and influence. Yet now you see this person begging on the side of the street. What's your first thought? Do you turn him away? Because God wouldn't. I digress.

Jon:

I'm gonna go back to what we're saying here because, like I said, I feel the fire today and it can lead me in so many ways or so many things that this man in the Bible can teach us that just from one verse. We can go on for a while, but he says I will be silent. Not help me be silent. No, stand in subservience and say I will be silent. I'm not gonna curse your name, god. I am taking accountability for not knowing what your will is, lord, and I don't need to know what your will is, because your will is going to manifest itself in my life. I am grateful for what I am going through because, god, you are allowing this to happen and I want it to happen so I can learn to be better. I can learn for that seed inside of me to grow that you have planted. He says teach me a man who is devout, a man who has had it all through to God's blessing, but yet he is still asking to be taught.

Jon:

We are never fully cognizant of what God has in store for us. We don't know what the world is throwing at us and how to react to it. Only God knows that. Only God knows what the next step is. Only God knows what he has in store for us. If we knew Everything God had in store for us, if we knew what the next answer was to our next problem, then what would God be there for? He remains at the forefront because His plan is what's going to occur. It's His will.

Jon:

And asking for God to teach us leads us to so many other things, because at this point we are allowing the Lord to work in our lives and he continues to say Help me to understand what I did wrong. He's not blaming God for his problems. See, we understand that in the Bible. God is so holy that he sent His Son, jesus Christ, to die on the cross for us, to cleanse us of our sins, because wherever there is sin, god cannot be present. So he is relating to that and saying God, what did I do wrong? He's not blaming the Lord, he's not blaming His circumstances, he's not blaming His issues on God. He is saying God, if I have done something wrong, help me understand, teach me, and I will be silent.

Jon:

Help me understand, help me understand is the key here, because he is saying Lord, I want to do your will. Lord, I am sorry if I have committed sins against you. Lord, help me understand what I did wrong so I could be better, I could be a better version of myself. Help me understand it, because I do not understand, and we are not going to understand, everything that God puts us through. There are going to be things that happen in our life that we don't know why it's happening. But it is happening and we are going through the trials, we're going through the tribulations.

Jon:

Too many of us turn our back on God, even though he has never turned His back on us. We are ungrateful for the gifts and the blessings he has thrown our ways since the moment we've opened our eyes from the womb of our mothers. Help me understand what I've done wrong, and that should be our prayer when we feel lost in the midst of our chaos. In Psalms 143, verse 10, it says Teach me to do your will. You are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on level ground. There are so many scriptures in the Bible that continue to go back to asking God for guidance, and that is what I am here to say. We need to be asking God for guidance and being grateful when he provides it, and even in silence. We need to be grateful because we are, whether we see it at that moment in time or not, see. God doesn't need to explain Himself to us. We can ask for an explanation today, but that doesn't mean we're gonna get an explanation today of what God is putting us through In the book of Abraham, when the Bible was talking about Abraham.

Jon:

He led him to his promised land, but he didn't tell Abraham he did. He said go there and you're going to inherit nations. And Abraham followed God in subservience and in gratitude. He followed him to the promised land and it took him 25 years of a promise to have a child, 25 years for that promise to be fulfilled. Do you think that Abraham didn't have questions on saying God, why am I going through this? You promised me something. Yeah, I don't feel it. You promised me something, yet it hasn't happened. It is on God's time and God will show you in His time, and we are to be grateful each and every day for everything that we are going through.

Jon:

Lord, I thank you for being able to listen in on your word. God, I thank you for waking up today. God, I thank you for being able to walk today. Lord, I thank you for having a plate of food. God, I thank you for giving me the chance to stay in somewhere warm. Lord, I thank you for giving me a place to lay my head. There are so many things that God blesses us with every single day and we remain ungrateful each and every day we should be thanking Him, bowing our heads down and taking a moment to thank Him for all the wonderful things that he provides us each and every day, and asking Him to teach us how to be better, to be subservient to His will.

Jon:

We cannot move forward in faith while being an obstacle of our own. Well, John, I'm not an obstacle. I do everything I'm told. I do everything I'm supposed to do. When you don't ask for guidance, when you don't ask for God to teach you, you are being an obstacle to yourself because you don't have all the answers. You don't have the playbook in your hands. And if you, this is a sport, god is a coach. God is the one who created the game. He knows what to do next. He knows how to teach you how to run. He knows how to teach you how to walk, how to pass the ball. God is the one who has the plan. You need to listen and ask for Him to show you.

Jon:

We try to walk on our own two feet way too often, thinking that we have all the answers because we're grown. But we're all guessing every single day. I have, I'm a father of two and not once have I ever stopped and said you know what. I know how to be a dad perfectly. I know all the answers. I know what to do next. I know if this happens. I know what to do perfectly to solve the issues, the way it's supposed to be done. No, not once. We're all guessing and we're all hoping that our kids won't find out when they get older, because rules might reverse at that point.

Jon:

We are all guessing, but when we are grateful to God for what he's given to us, when we seek to serve his will and ask him to teach us, at that point in time you are taking steps in faith. You are saying God, thank you for allowing me to arise this morning. Let your will take place and manifests itself in my life so that I may serve you. Lord, teach me how to do, teach me and give me the opportunity to serve you. Without question, god will show and he will take you in a path that you have never imagined, and that path is a lot longer and a lot windier than you may realize it. But it is worth the twists and the turns, because with every twist and turn, god will show you and be there to support you. He will provide for you, even if you don't think it's going to happen, you close your eyes and you continue to walk and he will be there to serve and to guide you in every step of the way and knowing that you are walking towards him, towards the light, and you are helping others see the difference in you and you are going to make a difference in their life. So long as you continue to walk the path and walk towards God, he will guide you. He will take you from your misery, he will take you from the chaos, he will take you from the storm and he is going to deliver you. So long as you are grateful, so long as you're willing to serve in his will, he will take you.

Jon:

It doesn't matter what you're going through, it doesn't matter what you're currently experiencing. God has a purpose for it. He is teaching you something and you need to ask God to teach you, to remain silent and teach you like he did in the verse, verse 24 in Job 6, verse 2, teach me and I will remain silent. Help me understand what I did wrong, because God is perfect. He does no wrong.

Jon:

If you're going through something in this season, if you're going through something hard that you just don't understand, give it up to him. Give it up to God, be grateful for it and give it up to him. See what happened. Be amazed the way that God can move in you. If you've never experienced gratitude with God, all you have to do is say thank you. See, god is listening to us all the time. He wants us to succeed. He wants to deliver us.

Jon:

The question is do you want to be delivered? Do you want God to take your life and make something wonderful with it? You may ask yourself, john, I don't know how to get there. I don't know how to be grateful, because I've just been through so much. Well, I'm here to tell you that I have been to, I have gone through my own trials and tribulations. We all have to some degree. Some are harder than others, and that's because God's gift is bigger. He is calling you. When you call somebody, are you going to talk for hours if you have nothing to say? See, when God's troubles or God's problems, how can I say this? In a way, god, grant me the words.

Jon:

If the trials that you're going through is being allowed by God's will to manifest itself in your life. It's his way of talking to you, it's his way of teaching you and he is going to deliver you so long as you believe in him. You just have to understand and accept that he is our Savior. If you've never accepted Jesus in your heart and you want to accept him today because you want God to deliver you from your situation, you want God to work in your life, or perhaps you've met, you've had God and you've known God, but yet you feel like you've fallen away. I urge you to pray with me. It's not difficult, and what is a few minutes of your time compared to the eternity of salvation that God has promised us in his words?

Jon:

So, bow your heads with me, close your eyes, reach your hands out in your hearts and say God, I come to you unclean. I come to you with more problems than I can bear. Lord, I know you are my Savior. I know that you died on the cross for my sins, even if I wasn't, even if I wasn't worthy. God, take my heart and fill it with your love. Save me from the troubles that I have gone through and that I continue to go through. And, lord, if I don't get saved, lord, if that is not your will, lord, help me understand, like you did, job. Help me understand what I did wrong, so that I may be better. Thank you, god, for all you do is wonderful, and all you've put me through will help me understand you better.

Jon:

In Jesus' name, I pray Amen. Lord, I ask you to see me as I am, god, I have fallen away from your grace due to my own feet. I have stumbled across myself, lord, and I don't want to be away from you. Save me, lord. Forgive me, for I don't know what I'm doing. God, your promises are forever and my knowledge is lacking, lord, and I ask that you come back into my heart and fill me with the joy that I once felt. Let my seed that you've planted in me grow so that I can serve you without question, lord, as I was meant to. Thank you, god, for being my Savior.

Jon:

In Jesus' name, I pray Amen. I want to say thank you so much for being a part of this channel. May God bless you and keep you, and remember one thing that Jesus is a Prince of Peace and, through his name, no fear, anxiety, depression or negativity may prevail. I pray that each and every single one of you have a wonderful day or night, and I hope you tune in on the next episode. This channel is going to begin airing more episodes every week, so please stay tuned to them and please support the channel by following and liking and leaving reviews on the actual channel so I can see them.

Jon:

I rejoice every single time that you leave a comment to know that the word that I've been speaking into this microphone is coming across and reaching your ears and your heart, and that God is touching you and working your lives away that only he can. I pray for each and every single one of you, and I know that we're going to be reaching more and more heights with more and more followers and we're going to start going over different things. So if you have a question, a comment, a concern, please feel free to reach out to me. I love each and every single one of your feedbacks. Again, thank you so so much for listening and being a part of this channel and this experience. I pray that you took something away from this message and that God is able to reach out to you and touch your hearts. This is Jonathan from Guide and Slight signing out. May God bless you and have a wonderful day, guys.