Skip to main content

If You Love Me

    Obviously something heavy on my heart lately is to not question Jesus. Not to question His plan or His leading. Not to mistrust Him. And not to question what He asks of me. I want to be so obedient to our God. When all is said and done, I want to be called His friend who proved blameless and always sought His ways above my own.

    So how do we go about being obedient to our God? First off, it is important to realize that being obedient and submissive is not about following laws and regulations that our God imposes on us, threatening us with dire consequences to obey. We act in submission to God because of our great love for Him. And we love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). He loves us unfairly and unjustly. With a furious love that surpasses all our mistakes and flaws. A love that we can never fully grasp until we are finally living in eternal paradise with our Jesus Himself. Out of this great love is birthed a desire to serve our God and give to Him all that we can offer.

John 14:15 If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (ESV)

    The biggest favor we can do for ourselves, ultimately, is to surrender to the leading of the One who has our best in mind. He sees the big picture that we cannot. Oftentimes, when we see just a portion of His plan, we cannot work it out. We may think it useless or even strange to do what He asks of us. I think of Joshua marching around the city of Jericho. The Lord gave him very specific instructions on how to overtake the city. The directions seem strange, yet Joshua does not question them. His success in obeying each instruction leads to the overturn of the city of Jericho. If only we could learn to hear and not question the authority of God and His plan.

    We know that God rewards obedience. The great man of faith, Abraham, was tested in this when God asks him to sacrifice his greatest joy in the world-- his son Isaac. Abraham so cherished his miraculous son, born to him in his old age and promised to carry on his line to make him the father of nations. Yet when God told Abraham to sacrifice his beloved, he obeyed. Moments before Isaac was pierced and killed, God ordered Abraham to stop. Because of his obedience, Abraham indeed became the father of many nations and was blessed greatly.

    I long to be like these great pillars of faith in our history. I long to be obedient to Jesus without a question of "why"or "how." It must be so freeing to trust God with your whole heart and only do what your Father tells you. How much simpler and peaceful would my life be! Today I meditate on Jesus' obedience to a brutal death on a cross for my sins. I aspire to be more like him every day.

Philippians 2:6-8
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!  
(NIV)
Romans 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? (ESV)


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Think Twice

    When the Holy Spirit was sent to us on earth, it made Jesus readily available to all. Now He lives in us, not among us. When you are a born again Christian, you now have Jesus dwelling inside you. How does that affect your daily life? Do you realize that you are a reflection of the one you carry with you everywhere you go?    Sadly, that doesn't mean much to a lot of Christians. Instead of using Jesus as an instrument of love, hope, and salvation, they use His name as a weapon. They spend their time boycotting instead of praying for Jesus to change hearts. Telling others that the God who IS love, hates them. Letting others know that they will go to hell for their decisions, instead of lighting the way to heaven. Let me be clear: this is wrong! No one wants to believe in a hateful, unforgiving God. I certainly don't. That's why I follow Jesus.     Even if you aren't the one openly boycotting on street corners, be careful of the image of God you are g...

Pergamum

Revelation 2:13-16  “I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan’s city. “But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth." (NLT)     To the church in Pergamum, Jesus commends them for their faithfulness. Interesting that what He told the church in Smyrna they were doing wrong was just what those in Pergamum were doing right! They lived in an area that made it particularly difficult to stay devoted to Christ because of all the persecution, yet...

Seeing by Faith

    When we are trying to live by faith, the things that inhibit us are the things that are right under our noses. We are trained to live based on the things around us. We don't believe anything if we don't see proof of it. The things around us are more our reality than what we say we believe in. But the Bible tells us that we are to walk by faith and not by sight. We are to live based on what we know is truth, not by what we see.     The things we see around us distract us from the reality we should be living in. What is unseen is eternal and more important than the things of this world. We need to fix our eyes on what is lasting and know the difference. We need to be filling ourselves with the word and not the world. When we are distracted by the world, we forget the truth. We become discouraged and doubt our faith. We need to draw strength from one another so that we may run the race with endurance.     What is determining your reality today? Is i...