Choosing God's Authority (3): Obedience.


Obedience in the Bible means to have a hearing heart that is intent on doing whatever God asks from us. Most importantly, a hearing heart that is rooted in love.

I must admit that obedience was once the word I hated most in the bible. The word I ran from when I was a flighty little kid. The word I rolled my eyes at when I was an emotional teenager that already knew what was best, clearly. The word I skimmed over and ignored when I moved out of home and started uni. I mean what harm could come from a little bit here and a little bit there? Surely this was a flexible thing. 

"It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts." - C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (1).

Obedience. It was the word that was spoken, crisp and clear in the middle of an acutely painful situation. The pain showed me where I was pushing God away, where I needed most to be mended (2).

Since then it started to draw me in. It appeared highlighted, bold, italicised and underlined whenever I read the bible. It was a self explanatory, obvious word. There was nothing here or there, a little or a lot, about it. It was so simple. It gave me a knowing look and with a wise smile it queried whether I’d ignore it this time. It dared me to roll my eyes again. 

Obedience didn’t force me to bow. Neither did it condemn me. It wasn’t the sting of a cruel whip nor was it a disappointed, condescending glare.

Instead, it went straight for my heart with fingers of firm assurance. Under the command to be still I watched as with strong, bold letters it began to write. It wrapped itself around the tables of my heart (3) and slowly but clearly, it taught me. It taught me what it meant to love God with everything I had and to love others as myself. It taught me that it had nothing for me to prove, nothing for me to finish. Christ on the cross did not say with his last breath, “it is finished (4),” to no effect. Grace has already completed what we never could. 

Obedience was no taskmaster, set over me to afflict me with a heavy burden (5). Obedience is not a slave being whipped to work faster, walk further and do better than the others. That kind of obedience only lasts as long as we can remember to imagine the atrocity of hell and feel the sting of the cruel whip. It only lasts as long as our feelings last. 

But God doesn’t promise to remove feelings of bitterness or prolong our feelings of love to help us obey. We are called to obey in-spite of our feelings. We are called to choose God over and above every temporal satisfaction and gain because we know he is worth pursuing, more than anything else that exists.

"The full acting out of the self's surrender to God therefore demands pain: this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey in the absence, or in the teeth, of inclination. How impossible it is to enact the surrender of the self by doing what we like.” -C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (6).

 When grace breathed life into dry bones (7) obedience becomes the arms lifted high in worship, a heart standing in awe, eyes filled with tears of gratitude and a mind that chooses God again and again and again. Obedience draws you back even when we've run away too many times.

This time we obey because of a love that never fails. In servitude to an eternal God who is the only one that can promise us infinite words forever.

We obey this time because we don’t want to break his heart. Not again. 

'Anyone who says they love God but doesn’t obey his commandments is a liar,' Obedience said (8) (9) (10).

-evieroo

 NB: For the Hebrew word that relates to obedience check out this video by The Bible Project!

  1. The Screwtape Letters, C.S.Lewis. 
  2. The Benefits of Pain, Siri Leknes and Brock Bastian.
  3. Proverbs 3:3 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+3%3A3&version=ESV
  4. John 19: 30 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+19%3A30&version=ESV
  5. Exodus 1:11 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+1%3A11&version=ESV
  6. The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis.
  7. Ezekial 37:7-10 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekial+37%3A7-10&version=ESV
  8. John 14:23 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+14%3A23&version=ESV
  9. 1 John 2:4 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+john+2%3A4&version=ESV
  10. 1 John 4: 20 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+john+4%3A+20&version=ESV


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