Obedience

Obedience is a journey. A journey that takes us to perfection. In the travails of our Christian walk, obedience is the hallmark of our victories, the signposts of our progress. Obedience is following a higher authority’s instruction, commandment, will, and teaching. Firstly, notice the word, Higher Authority. You are obliged to obey the dictates and directives of a superior entity. A child is scolded by parents, older siblings or older relatives/acquaintances for being disobedient or, for emphasis’ sake, rebellious (Looking at you, the Children of Israel who left Egypt). Rebellion is the result of going against laid down principles, instructions or laws. No wonder nations frown against rebels, with severe punishment being their inheritance. A rebellious heart seriously displeases any higher authority, in our case, YHWH.

Obedience to God, in this era of a Father/Child relationship between us and our maker, brings us to perfection and must be learnt. The perfection in this parlance means destiny, our glorification, the very reason and essence for which we were made. First of all, before we became born again, i.e. before we came into the knowledge of who we are in Christ and the great price He paid at the cross, we were bound by sin. We were subject entirely to the whims of our flesh. There was no Holy Spirit within to convict us of our shortcomings. We were fueled by our earthly desires, entirely. It required work and discipline to appear seemingly righteous before God, after all, we are men. I dare say, that just believing God and his promises gave some righteousness credit ( Papa Abraham). In those days, the Law was written on tablets of stone, and there was a spelt out cause and effect mechanism in place for those who chose to either obey or disobey. There’s a full low down of these in Deuteronomy 28.

In our days, the LAW of the Lord is written in our hearts as found in Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10. This means that the WORD will dwell within us, written on our hearts. The mechanism by which this will take place was spelt out in both Ezekiel 36:26-27 and 2 Corinthians 3:3. The Word will dwell richly in us through the help of the Holy Spirit. Oh, how blessed we are. We must indeed be grateful for the coming of Christ Jesus whose sacrifice ushered in the availability of the Holy Spirit of God unto us. It is by the Holy Spirit we can follow God’s decrees and regulations as stated in Ezekiel 36:27 (NLT). Since His Word is within us, and His Spirit constantly reminds us what the Word has said ( John 14:26), we must OBEY what He says or wants.

One unique thing about us humans in all of creation is that we have the reasoning ability to form a choice. A choice to obey or not to obey. When God made man, we were meant to be permanently in tune with the Will of God. It was by this that Adam named all animals accurately in the book of Genesis. And then man fell by eating the fruit dangling from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, making him a man with a choice. A choice to please God or not, and since we are all traced back to that root, we, by birth, are born with that nature; to choose or not to choose. Our spirits come out, naturally rebellious to what God wants. This remains so until we are born again. Our belief in Jesus Christ, His sacrifice on the cross, and our confession to taking Him as our Lord and saviour, then qualify us for the gift of salvation. John 3 explains this whole process of being born again. Being born again is a ritual, a dying to your old self which is a being driven by the desires of your flesh. To be saved, you must believe in Christ.

This death, the rebirth, puts a new Spirit within you. That which wants to please God and Him only. At this point though, you have stepped into a battle arena as a soldier where you are at constant war within. A war to please the flesh ( this part of you which drove the old you before being born gain; this part of you can not be rebirthed )or please the Spirit ( the part of you rebirthed at the point of declaring Christ as your Lord and Saviour). A battle in the mind. A battle for the mind. On one hand, the flesh is fueled by its earthly desires. A desire to please itself. Its desires are most times detrimental to itself. Such a dangerous creature if left untamed ( that is, yielding to its every whim and cry). It does things to kill itself. Its tools are the senses. The untamed flesh looks at the opposite sex lustfully, loves the touch of an immoral partner, enjoys the taste of dangerous substances, feeds itself for taste and not for function, and so many more. What it does through its senses is to corrupt the mind, such that the only fruit the mind produces when the flesh is untamed is corruption. On the other hand, is the renewed Spirit. The one which teaches you to pray reminds you of God’s Words and promises teaches you all things, convicts you when unrighteous, and as you grow in Him, gifts you, makes you produce good fruit, and brings you to glorification. Yielding to Him causes your mind to produce good fruit and not corruption. The Spirit and Flesh are one and opposite. One builds up while the other destroys.

Which of these two you obey determines what you produce. The Bible says in Proverbs 4: 23 that you should guard your heart with all diligence, for everything you do flows from it. The CEB version ties the heart and mind as one. What you do is a result of what is on your mind. What your mind produces depends on what you obey, your flesh or your Spirit. Deuteronomy 30:9, God said He had given us a choice between life and death, but commanded us to choose life. Disobedience brought death while obedience brought life (Deuteronomy 28).

We must choose obedience to live. Life comes from knowing the will of God concerning everything, and choosing to follow Him. The Bible says in John 1:1-4, that this life was the light of men. Light helps us navigate, to know the way, to find our path. An example is candidly stated in Proverbs 5:3, talking about an adulterous woman. Her lips drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil. Her touch probably feels good on the body, setting the members on edge, but the end thereof is the destruction of any man that goes in with her. One passage that scares me daily is that men who go in with such women will never find the life path (Proverbs 2:19) !!! My God! As believers, we must constantly feed the Spirit within to produce life. The God kind of life. The Holy Spirit then uses what we feed the mind to instruct us. John 14:26 says the Spirit will remind us of all things Christ has said, as well as teach us all things. To produce good fruit is to OBEY the dictates of the Spirit within, the Word with us, and the instructions from God to us. The Word of God must dwell richly in us so we may produce good fruit. To produce good fruit is to obey that which the Master wants from us, expecting us to do.

May God grant us the grace, and may we have the discipline, to feed our minds right, that we may produce good fruit; the fruit expected of us. Obedience is a journey, I started this devotional with this in mind. The Bible says in Hebrews 5:8, that Christ learnt obedience by the things which He suffered. Obedience brings to perfection, perfection with the Father, the glorification of us, the Saints, and just as it did for Jesus, obedience does for us.

What then do we obey? Simply put; The Voice of God, the Word of God, the dictates of the Spirit. Why must we? To find Life. This life is the light of men. In the gross darkness of this earthly realm, we need all the Light we can get!