Obedience. Oh, how we seem to hate this word. For some
reason, we have fallen into the trap of thinking that obedience somehow means
we lose our identity; that we somehow become less of an individual, and thereby
lose our significance. Hogwash!
Consider
this:
‘Yet
He (Jesus) learned obedience by the things which He suffered’ (Hebrews 5:8,
NKJV).
‘He
humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of
the cross’ (Philippians 2:8).
Jesus, the
great I AM, embraced obedience to a degree you and I never will. So if the
Savior of all mankind was obedient, then we ought to follow His example and rid
our thinking of all the nonsense that obedience is bad. And while last week we
explored two key elements in pursuing God—prayer and Scripture—this is the
third key to pursuing God—obedience.
‘Whoever
believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him
who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love
the children of God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God,
that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome’ (1 John
5:1-3).
Interestingly,
the above reference calls us to obedience while also stating that being
obedient is not burdensome. In other words, God’s commandments are not heavy or
weighty. This truth is much to the contrary of what the enemy wants us to
think. So much of faithless religion is
based solely on works; the more we work then the more favor we have with God.
Yet here God is saying that His commandments are not burdensome; man’s
commandments may be, but God’s commandments are not.
But is this
true? Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Let’s begin
with Jesus Himself by looking at the Mark 12, where a scribe poses a question
to Jesus:
“Which
is the first commandment of all?”
Jesus
answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord
our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall
love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than
these” (Mark 12:28b-31).
Hmm. I can
just imagine this exchange. The Scribe, probably in some sort of robe, wanted
to trap Jesus by asking Him a question that seemed impossible to answer (see
also Matthew 22:34-40 and Luke 10:25-28). But Jesus, leveling His gaze in a way
that looked right through the man, had no hesitation in His answer. Not only
that, Jesus gave two commandments back at the man, not just one (you can’t put
Jesus in a box). He didn’t throw out a
bunch of rules and regulations; instead, he spoke of love.
The Apostle
Paul spoke to this as well by way of an admonition.
“We
should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every
wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the conning craftiness of
deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things
into Him who is the head—Christ” (Ephesians 4:14-15).
Again, the
exercise of obedience from 1 John 5 as further defined in Ephesians is speaking
the truth; but it isn’t speaking it hatefully or as a verbal weapon. Instead,
truth is to be spoken in love.
So a third
key in pursuing God is obedience. Obedience to God is not burdensome because it
is to be bathed in and motivated by love.
So as we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our souls by intentionally
pursuing God in prayer and Scripture with the desire to be obedient, He will
empower us to also love with the love by which He first loved us (see Galatians
5:22 and 1 John 4:19).
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