God warns us against sin all throughout Scripture. That’s why He’s laid out a path for us to avoid the suffering and inevitable consequences that come with disobedience. When we choose to do it His way, we should also be on the lookout to invite anyone who’s willing to jump in with us and follow Him.

The Israelites wasted 20 long years because they chose not to repent and follow the Lord. They only brought more consequence on themselves in the end. Often, we’re like the Israelites: we procrastinate on our repentance, and God allows consequences to come our way in order to draw us back to Him.

God requires obedience from us — not the second time, or the third time, but the first time He asks. And when He tells us to do something and we disobey, there will be consequences. His discipline isn’t about punishment — it’s about Him loving us enough to let us face the results of our choices.

The more we know God, the more we should fear God. But it’s not an unhealthy fear — it’s the kind of fear that’s accompanied by a certain awe and respect that only the Creator of the universe deserves. When we choose to be irreverent towards Him, or to disobey Him, it only ends up costing us in the end.

God takes obedience to Him seriously — but He also knows we can’t obey Him through our own effort. None of us can be perfectly like Christ, but we can let Him work as Himself in us and through us. He alone can provide us with the power and the strength to say “yes” to what He asks.

God gives us plenty of warning signs on the road to disobedience. Through Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and fellow believers, He urges us to heed those warnings — not only to avoid the painful consequences of sin, but to avoid the ultimate consequence of hell itself.

The Bible says that we’re dead to sin — yet we don’t live that way. On the contrary, there are certain sins that ensnare and entangle us in the traps of the enemy. Instead of sinning as much as we want to because we know that God will forgive us, we need to acknowledge that there are consequences to our choices — and that our best life is lived in obedience to Him.

Every action we take comes with a subsequent reaction; just read Samson’s story in Scripture. The Bible warns us to flee from temptation, but, like Samson, we’re susceptible to giving in. Even in those moments of consequence when we sin, God gives us strength if only we ask, so that we can pick ourselves up, move forward, and continue in His work.

Scripture is filled with real stories of real people, just like you and me — and many of those stories illustrate the high cost of disobeying the Lord. While we’re all susceptible to making mistakes, we can avoid many of the pitfalls we read about in the Bible when we’re grounded in relationship with God and with His Word.

We don’t sin in a vacuum. Whether we do the right thing or the wrong thing, other people are always impacted by our choices. When Jonah resisted the instructions God gave him, so many other people were affected by his disobedience — and in the same way, when we disobey God, other people suffer the consequences of our sin.