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Obedience
Obedience In Praise of Mindless Obedience
Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 08:26AM
“I won’t be a hypocrite. The Bible says partying and getting drunk is a bad thing, but I really like it. Why should I hold back from doing something if that’s what my heart really wants? I don’t think God would appreciate that. Obeying God only counts when we mean it from the heart.”
These are the words of a teenager I once tried to turn back from the edge of reckless behavior. This young person was intelligent, sincere, and determined not to put up a false front. His highest value was “be true to your heart.” He had seen plenty of high-school classmates profess one set of values at some religious group, yet party themselves into a stupor on Friday nights (or New Year's Eve).
True obedience to the will of God must spring from the heart, right? When Jesus said “if a man looks on a woman lustfully he has already committed adultery,” he was trying to point to the soil of the heart from which all action flows. Mindless, outer, obedience is the stuff of Pharisees, right?
In our era--perhaps more than any other--we are urged to be be real: “Follow your dreams . . . don’t settle for less . . . be true to your self.” Yes, well, what if I’m a jerk? Should I be true to that self? What if my dreams involve a level of selfishness that puts my family at risk for poverty or loss? Should I be true to those dreams? What if in refusing to settle for less I end up achieving nothing, and must rely on the charity of others? What if following my heart leads me to a god who looks exactly like . . . me?
It’s true that the highest obedience flows from a heart conformed to his image: are there lower forms of obedience capable of effecting change from the outside in? How does my heart experience such a transformation, and what is my role in the metamorphosis?
Reader Comments (3)
I know that the Bible (John?) says if we love God we will obey Him. I think that we need to increase our love for God. We know what our love for God was like in the near days after our salvation experience. The world was brighter, more colorful. We were happier, joyful. We rejoiced in God's goodness and greatness. What did we do to get this? We surrendered, we received Christ as our Savior, we made a confession of this to others. We could hardly wait to tell others what had happened to us. How we had discovered God. Many of us had miraculous stories to testify about. Deliverance from drugs, alcohol, and so on, overnight so to speak.
Maybe we are listening to too many voices in our day. We need to pick up our Bible and hear Jesus teach us. We have everything that we need for obedience to God. Love Him and all is well.
Hi Linda:
Without a doubt, our love for God will lead us to obedience. When we have this love, it is sufficient. I like your line, "We have everything that we need for obedience to God."
I am curious about those times, though, when our love is less than passionate, less than motivating. What then? I suspect many people today think that the only authentic obedience is that which whole-hearted. What attracts my attention is the possibility that our obedience (for whatever reason) might lead us more deeply into love.
I've been reading in Deuteronomy the last few days. What we see here is an exhortation to love God, to serve him, to keep his commandments, so that all will be well with the people (Israelites) while they live on the earth. As long as heaven is still above the earth. A day will come when the heavens will roll up like a scroll the Bible says.
This seems to say that following God's commandments in an outward (have to or should by law )way creates blessing for people but not eternal life. The blessing is finite. The OT was the natural, the NT the spiritual that was to follow.
The exhortation seems to be to the Israelites in the OT that loving God is not a hard thing. They had stubborn hearts, they didn't trust God, they didn't obey God the Bible says. I think that we are dealing with a work of the Holy Spirit. We receive a new heart in Christ the Bible says. I am thinking that many believers have been seduced into serving something other than the 'Jesus' of the Bible. Another Jesus perhaps.
The emphasis today seems to be on how God loves us, and not on how we need to love God with all of our heart and soul. Life is more than food and drink, but today's believers are focusing on the natural it seems. Looking for the blessing of God in material or worldly ways. I heard one believer state in a blog that his church is demanding that the believers dwell on the fact Jesus was a 'man', just like ourselves. Yet Paul states that we know Jesus no more after the flesh.
Obedience did not seem to lead the Israelites (as a whole ) more deeply into love (for God). It brought them sucess, but not transformation. Not eternal life.