I always was a good kid. (Seriously, I don’t think my parents have a clue how easy they had it with me!) I had perfect attendance in Sunday school and was ready to give a beautifully worded, theologically-sound answer every time I was called on. Every teacher, coach, director, and boss I’ve ever had enjoyed having me in their class, on their team, working for them, etc., because I was a model student, teammate, and employee…I worked hard, excelled at nearly everything I put my hands to, and NEVER BROKE THE RULES.
What could I possibly have to learn about obedience??? (Humility on the other hand…haha…don’t worry, that’s Lesson #2!)
Oh, if only obedience were as black and white as we so often make it out to be!
But you see, obedience, while it most certainly does INCLUDE following rules, at its core has nothing to do with whether or not you FOLLOW the rules, but HOW you follow them.
I find it interesting that the wording of the fifth commandment (that God gives us in the Bible) is not “OBEY your father and mother,” but “HONOR your father and mother.” I think back to high school, for example, when my parents gave me a curfew every time I went out with my friends on the weekend: Of course I came home on time…but you better believe that I was dragging my heels the whole way, walked in the door at the exact time they had stated and not a moment sooner, and sometimes even made comments to my friends about how my parents were “so stupid and lame for making me come home earlier than everyone else!”
I obeyed the rules, but there was absolutely NO HONOR involved. I may not have been DISOBEYING, but I was most certainly DISRESPECTING.
Rote actions of obedience done out of a heart of rebellion, is no obedience at all!
How many times have I “obeyed” in this way???...not just with my parents, but more importantly with God! Looking back, my life has been FULL of thoughtless, heartless, lifeless “obedience.” Mom, Dad, GOD, I am sorry.
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Okay, so obedience is not an action…it is a state of the heart. But how do I make my heart WANT to obey God??? ‘Cause I’ll be honest, my selfish little heart’s first inclination is not necessarily always to bring HONOR to God!
I think back to many Sunday school lessons, church sermons, and lectures in class at the Christian school I attended that attempted to address this topic. “We shouldn’t obey God because we HAVE to, but because we WANT to!” the pastor stated confidently. “We obey out of gratitude…it’s our way of saying thank you to Jesus for what He did for us on the cross,” echoed numerous Sunday school teachers. “That’s nice,” my cynical young mind thought. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not trying to make light of this subject…It’s TRUTH and I believe it 100%!...But having this knowledge in my head, did nothing to change the way I was feeling in my heart.
There was still no JOY in my obedience until I realized two things:
1) I CAN’T change my heart…only God can, through the work of the Holy Spirit in me.
2) Obeying God goes FAR beyond obeying the specific rules written down in the Bible. Again, of course it INCLUDES these rules, but is not limited to them: IF I OBEY EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS PERFECTLY, BUT I IGNORE THE PROMPTING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN MY EVERYDAY LIFE, I AM NOT OBEDIENT! If God calls me to speak with a stranger, pray for a friend, fulfill an act of service, and I do not do these things, I have passed up an opportunity to bring HONOR to God. I did not steal, I did not lie, I did not commit adultery or murder…I did something far worse…I IGNORED GOD.
Over the past few months as I have begun to become more in tune with the voice of the Holy Spirit, gently yet firmly nudging me from within, I have also become increasingly aware of how many times in a day I am presented with a chance to either submit to that voice, or run in the opposite direction…and until very recently, I almost always opted to run.
And then one day someone else followed the voice of the Holy Spirit in their life…this person felt called to extend an invitation to me to pray for someone else. Now I’ve prayed for people before, but this was prayer at a whole different level…the kind where you give a person words that are not at all your own, but that have been given to you directly from God to give to the person that you’re praying for. I had never been a part of this kind of prayer before…it terrified me…I was so scared that I wouldn’t be able to do it, that I wouldn’t have anything to say…certainly not in comparison to all the other “more spiritual” people there who were much more practiced in this kind of prayer than I was! But for what was perhaps the first time in my life, I submitted to the Spirit’s prodding, accepted the invitation, and began to pray…
…And as I prayed, even though my voice shook with nervous energy, I felt so at peace…it felt good, it felt right. I continued to pray that night for others who needed prayer, the whole time being continuously reaffirmed in my spirit that God can and WILL use ME to speak into the lives of the people I come into contact with.
This emotion-filled, Spirit-driven night, in combination with the encouragement I later received from many of the people who were there, created a boldness and an excitement in me that I have never experienced before! I actually WANTED to go out and pray for people and speak into their lives…I WANTED to follow the voice of the Holy Spirit!
That weekend I felt called to:
-Share bits and pieces of my testimony with a few different people…so I did!
-Offer an act of service to a family that I had just met…so I did!
-Invite someone to be a part of a group that had the potential to significantly impact his relationship with God…so I did!
-Pray for someone who didn’t have the emotional strength and energy to pray for herself…so I did!
I don’t know HOW my obedience impacted the lives of these people, but I trust that it DID. God always has a plan and we may not always understand it, but He does not ask us to UNDERSTAND…He asks us to TRUST and OBEY.
One person listened to God’s voice…inviting and encouraging me to enter in to a whole new level of spirituality. I in turn listened to God’s voice and spoke in to the lives of 10+ people within the next few days. And if each of those people were to speak and act in response to the Spirit’s leading in the lives of 10+ people each, over 100 people will have had their lives touched…radically altered even, by God, through just a few people, in just a few days! And as people continue to submit to the Spirit’s guiding, the positive ramifications continue to explode exponentially!
NOW THIS IS A GOD-HONORING OBEDIENCE THAT I CAN GET EXCITED ABOUT AND FIND JOY IN!!!
I get it, I finally get it...God’s commandments for us are not just a bunch of rules that were carved into stone thousands of year ago…the things He asks of us, both in His written word and through the still small voice of the Spirit inside of us are living, breathing, refreshing, revitalizing, reconciling, redeeming, LIFE CHANGING, WORLD CHANGING…WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO BE A PART OF THAT?!?!? Sign me up. I’m on board. I WANT to be OBEDIENT. I WANT to bring HONOR to God!
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