You can spend years asking God to show you His will while holding tightly to the very thing He has asked you to surrender.
We want to obey. We just want the next step to feel safe first. Or we want more money in the bank. Or we need everyone we love to approve.
But obedience cannot remain forever on the other side of “first.”
In an episode of “The John Bevere Podcast,” Bevere and his son Arden examine three things that can keep Christians from stepping into their God-given assignments: security, money and relationships.
Bevere distinguishes receiving a calling from being appointed and sent into a particular responsibility. Drawing from Luke 9, he points to people who expressed willingness to follow Jesus but attached conditions to their response.
“They said, ‘Let us do what’s important to me first,’” Bevere said, describing their attitude.
That is where this gets personal. We can speak sincerely about following Jesus while still reserving the right to set the terms.
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1. Security: When Comfort Starts Making Your Decisions
The first man in Luke 9 offers to follow Jesus wherever He goes. Jesus responds by describing His lack of a permanent place to lay His head.
“What is he addressing with this man? Security,” Bevere said.
A steady job and a familiar routine can become difficult to release. We know how life works here. We understand the demands. Taking the next step means trusting God with circumstances we cannot control.
The danger comes when keeping everything predictable becomes more important than obeying what God has clearly spoken.
Bevere recalls leaving engineering for ministry, a decision his parents struggled to understand. He describes the willingness God seeks this way:
“I don’t care what you ask me to do, what you ask me to say, where you ask me to go. It makes no difference. I’m going to trust you.”
We have to examine whether our desire for certainty has become a permanent excuse. If every act of obedience must come with a guarantee of comfort, we have given comfort authority over our response to God.
2. Money: When the Financial Conditions Are Never Quite Right
The second man asks to bury his father before following Jesus. Bevere interprets the request as concern about securing an inheritance, connecting the delay to financial interests.
“So this guy, his situation isn’t security, it’s money,” Bevere said.
The pressure is familiar. We calculate what obedience could cost and begin negotiating for more time. We will move when the savings account reaches a certain number. We will serve when the opportunity becomes financially attractive.
Meanwhile, the conditions keep changing and the answer keeps waiting.
Bevere also acknowledges how money influenced his own ministry decisions. Concern about meeting payroll sometimes drove him to accept more travel than he should have.
“I put the work of the ministry at times above what God was really telling me to do,” he said.
That confession deserves our attention. Even work done in God’s name can become tangled in financial pressure. A busy ministry schedule does not automatically prove that every decision came from God.
Bevere later emphasizes honest money management and faithful stewardship. The issue is who directs our decisions. We must handle money responsibly without giving it the final word over obedience.
3. Relationships: When Approval Becomes a Requirement
The third man wants to say farewell to his household before following Jesus. Bevere identifies relationships as the obstacle in this encounter.
“So, we got security, we got money, we got relationships,” he said.
People we love can struggle to understand what God has placed on our hearts. Familiar surroundings and family expectations can make a difficult assignment even harder to accept. Bevere also warns about romantic involvement that pulls someone away from God’s direction.
The cost of disappointing people can feel immediate. The cost of postponing obedience is easier to ignore.
Yet discernment matters here. Bevere’s admission about excessive travel belongs alongside his challenge to put God first. He acknowledges that he sometimes confused ministry demands with God’s direction. We must examine our motives honestly as we fulfill our responsibilities at home and in the work God gives us.
Bevere urges Christians to reach a place of sincere surrender:
“God, I’ll do anything you tell me to do.”
That surrender must reach beyond a moving moment in prayer. It has to shape the next decision.
God’s assignment can unfold in a classroom, a business or a hospital. Public recognition does not determine its value. Bevere urges Christians to remain faithful in small responsibilities, serve consistently and spend time reading and praying over Scripture.
Start with the responsibility already in your hands. Do it faithfully. Bring the conditions you have placed on obedience before God and surrender them.
“If you don’t choose to do it, you want to just live for yourself, you want to use the gifts that he’s given you for yourself, he’ll give the assignment to somebody else,” Bevere said.
We cannot keep promising God tomorrow while withholding our obedience today.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a journalism background from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and at the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
