Obedience: Because, Not In Order To

Obedience: Because, Not In Order To

Ok, these prepositions are kind of awkward, I’ll admit. But I think we need some definition and order in what we say sometimes, and perhaps awkwardness sometimes catches people up enough to open a perspective shift possibility.

So, obedience is doing what you are told, right? And obedience to God would then be doing what God tells you to do. It’s impossible to please God without faith (Hebrews 11:6), and faith without works is dead (James 2:14).

BUT.

There is an order to this, and we often get it wrong. My friend and mentor Mike Wells had a great illustration for this, where he would demonstrate that giving all the numbers of his telephone number in no particular order did a person no good if they wanted to call him. You have to have the numbers in the exact order in order to connect with a person with a phone call. Just a bunch of random 7’s, 2’s and 0’s doesn’t help you at all!

In the same way, we have to get the order right in our relationship with God.

The Church

The Church

For many years, I treated the church as if it was a form of torture. I wanted nothing to do with people who oozed with the “churchiness” that I loathed. I held myself in arrogance over those who were found in church as if they were to be pitied and despised.

Slowly and gradually, the tender kindness of God has changed that perspective. He has shown me that my despising others was not of Him, but rather out of my own insecurity.

I don’t want to hold up theology and beat others with it, forgetting love.

I don’t want to have to agree with someone in order to love them.

I don’t want to assume that I hold the image of God alone, but instead seeing it reflected in many different ways throughout the body of Christ.

I don’t want to condemn others when God Himself has stated there is no condemnation. (Rom 8:1)

I want to see people with God’s eyes, past their behavior and their posturing to their heart.

My friend and mentor Mike Wells used to say that anytime we move from the center of the wheel down a spoke to the edge, we are missing out. Anytime we require a program, a way of thinking, a behavior ahead of Christ, we have moved from the center of the wheel. It must be Jesus first and Jesus only. He is our Life, and we can’t find that in productivity or moral living. We are not supposed to be generating our “pleasing-ness” to God. He has already made us pleasing in making us a new creation. We need only live in that.

Walking with the broken to find hope in Jesus