Rod Loy, Immediate Obedience: The Adventure of Tuning in to God (Springfield, MO: Influence Resources, 2014). Paperback / Kindle

My son is five years old. Much of my parenting of him at the moment involves teaching impulse control. I tell him, “Just because you feel like yelling—or making rude noses or smacking your foster sister on the back of the head—doesn’t mean you have to do it.”

It is generally understood that impulse control refers to the suppression of negative impulses. That is well and good, of course, but not all our impulses are negative. Should we also teach our children to restrain positive impulses? Shouldn’t we rather teach them to act on positive impulses? Indeed, shouldn’t we act on good impulses ourselves—to forgive, to help, to share God’s love?

In his book, Pastor Rod Loy encourages readers to practice immediate obedience, which is “the courage to act instantly on whatever [God] told [you] to do.” Such obedience assumes, of course, that God speaks to us, through Scripture preeminently but also through other means. It also assumes that we are listening, not allowing disobedience, distraction, or doubt to close our ears to God.

When we listen to God speak and immediately obey His voice, He leads us on an adventure of increasing faith, service, and blessing. When we don’t, we miss out on God’s blessing, allow disobedience to creep into other areas of our lives, and experience regret about how God could’ve used us…if only we’d been willing. Clearly, immediate obedience is the better option.

The concluding chapter of the book shares good advice about how to start developing the habit of immediate obedience: give God your heart above all else, make decisions today that will allow you to say “yes” to God tomorrow, avoid debt or eliminate it if you have it, hold possessions loosely, start small, and never say no.

The book includes discussion questions at the end of each chapter, making it ideal for use in small groups. It also includes “The 90-Day Challenge” with a Bible reading, prayer guide, and reflection questions. The goal of the challenge is to help you “ask God to make you sensitive to His voice, and then, to obey whatever He asks you to do.” I found this book spiritually encourage and very practical. I plan to take the 90-Day Challenge.

(Full Disclosure: I am a friend of Pastor Rod Loy, and I work for the Assemblies of God, which is the parent company of Influence Resources.)

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