What is obedience?
In the body of Christ, that is, the church, it seems to me that we have a strange idea of what obedience is. Most of us attend a church building or other kind of gathering, and to some extent we do some praying, and some worship, and some study…and we enjoy fellowship together. All these things seem to be the substance of our obedience to God, and we have developed a confidence that God smiles upon us because He sees this obedience.
But what if God is not asking us to fellowship in that particular church, or to worship with those people, or to pray with them in that particular way, or even to have confidence that this form of religious works is acceptable? What would we be left with, if we had to take all that away?
I think we would be left with nothing that we could call obedience. That means we would be in a very serious position, even in a position that would cause us to ask ourselves, isn’t my obedience to God a principal requirement of service?
So, if what we are doing in all of these listed and accepted things is not obedience, wouldn’t that make it disobedience? Wouldn’t that endanger us spiritually and place us in a very problematic position before Jesus, when we finally stand before Him in that day?
To illustrate, imagine a father who has a son, and tells the son to go upstairs to the bathroom and wash his face. What would we think of the son if he instead went to the library and found the law section, and looked up whether a father has a right to tell his son to wash his face? And then, what if he came out of the library, and went to the meeting house on the corner and asked the pastor about it? And what next if he then discounted his father’s instruction by falling in with the church routine, singing the songs, praying, fellowshipping, and doing all these things rather than going to the bathroom to wash his face?
We would say, why on earth didn’t he just go upstairs to the bathroom and wash his face?
Of course, this is way more serious than face-washing.
It seems to me that the church is being just like that little disobedient boy. He has an idea what obedience might be, but his ideas are all outside of the actual obedience that would make his behaviour that of a son. He thinks obedience might exist in this or that, and all the while he is working it out, he is trying his best to avoid actually doing what his father said.
His father said to wash his face, and he hasn’t done it yet. He still hasn’t done it. He has discovered no end of other activities that he can do in place of his father’s instruction, substituting it, but that, even though it might look well and good, is still disobedience.
Something else is wanting here.
What has happened to us, in being born again, has made us one with our Father’s will. Obedience has become something much more than ritual, much more than going through the religious motions, much more than thumbing through the book of the law: it has become the substance of our relationship with the One Who loves us and Who paid the ultimate price for us to make us safe, eternally. Our obedience has become a matter of co-operation, in the present tense. This has happened because God has given us His Spirit, to tell us what He wants, how He wants us to behave, what He wants us to do, in the continuing moment of “now”.
Before church business goes too far, if we are born again, wouldn’t it be better to just do what God asks us, rather than go around all the houses trying to find loopholes in His will? Wouldn’t it be better to get up into that bathroom, and for goodness sake, just wash our face?
Much love to all
In the body of Christ, that is, the church, it seems to me that we have a strange idea of what obedience is. Most of us attend a church building or other kind of gathering, and to some extent we do some praying, and some worship, and some study…and we enjoy fellowship together. All these things seem to be the substance of our obedience to God, and we have developed a confidence that God smiles upon us because He sees this obedience.
But what if God is not asking us to fellowship in that particular church, or to worship with those people, or to pray with them in that particular way, or even to have confidence that this form of religious works is acceptable? What would we be left with, if we had to take all that away?
I think we would be left with nothing that we could call obedience. That means we would be in a very serious position, even in a position that would cause us to ask ourselves, isn’t my obedience to God a principal requirement of service?
So, if what we are doing in all of these listed and accepted things is not obedience, wouldn’t that make it disobedience? Wouldn’t that endanger us spiritually and place us in a very problematic position before Jesus, when we finally stand before Him in that day?
To illustrate, imagine a father who has a son, and tells the son to go upstairs to the bathroom and wash his face. What would we think of the son if he instead went to the library and found the law section, and looked up whether a father has a right to tell his son to wash his face? And then, what if he came out of the library, and went to the meeting house on the corner and asked the pastor about it? And what next if he then discounted his father’s instruction by falling in with the church routine, singing the songs, praying, fellowshipping, and doing all these things rather than going to the bathroom to wash his face?
We would say, why on earth didn’t he just go upstairs to the bathroom and wash his face?
Of course, this is way more serious than face-washing.
It seems to me that the church is being just like that little disobedient boy. He has an idea what obedience might be, but his ideas are all outside of the actual obedience that would make his behaviour that of a son. He thinks obedience might exist in this or that, and all the while he is working it out, he is trying his best to avoid actually doing what his father said.
His father said to wash his face, and he hasn’t done it yet. He still hasn’t done it. He has discovered no end of other activities that he can do in place of his father’s instruction, substituting it, but that, even though it might look well and good, is still disobedience.
Something else is wanting here.
What has happened to us, in being born again, has made us one with our Father’s will. Obedience has become something much more than ritual, much more than going through the religious motions, much more than thumbing through the book of the law: it has become the substance of our relationship with the One Who loves us and Who paid the ultimate price for us to make us safe, eternally. Our obedience has become a matter of co-operation, in the present tense. This has happened because God has given us His Spirit, to tell us what He wants, how He wants us to behave, what He wants us to do, in the continuing moment of “now”.
Before church business goes too far, if we are born again, wouldn’t it be better to just do what God asks us, rather than go around all the houses trying to find loopholes in His will? Wouldn’t it be better to get up into that bathroom, and for goodness sake, just wash our face?
Much love to all