Obedience

When we say obedience, what is the first thing that strikes?

Obedience is a very difficult aspect of our life. We learn it right from our childhood. Parents keep on insisting that we obey them. When we are at work, we are expected to obey our superiors, the terminologies may change but the bottom line is obedience. We may call it pressure, compulsion or anything else. If we analyse, we are obeying some or the other all the time. An explanation for that would be, if I don’t obey God, I am obeying either my flesh or an external source. I am all the time in that mode of obedience or submission. If I don’t obey my parents, I am obeying my flesh. Therefore, we are in these states of obedience through out our life time:

Obedience to Man

Obedience to self

Obedience to God

Obedience to leaders

Obedience to Parents

Obedience to our superiors

It’s not only that but it’s also very relative. If I choose to obey someone, at the same moment I am disobeying some one else. That is, if I choose to obey my friends and submit to their decision, I might not be doing what my parents have expected me to do. It’s very relative. It’s finally my decision as to who I should be obeying and disobeying at the same time.

1 Sam 25

 A certain man in Maon, who had property there at Carmel, was very wealthy. He had a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel. ³ His name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband was surly and mean in his dealings—he was a Calebite.

⁸ Ask your own servants and they will tell you. Therefore be favorable toward my men, since we come at a festive time. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can find for them.’”

¹⁰ Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants are breaking away from their masters these days. ¹¹ Why should I take my bread and water, and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men coming from who knows where?”

¹⁸ Abigail acted quickly. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs^[b] of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. ¹⁹ Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I’ll follow you.” ³⁷ Then in the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him all these things, and his heart failed him and he became like a stone. ³⁸ About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died.

Abigail chose to obey her heart, or probably, she heard God. But at the same time chose to disobey her husband. She was definitely in a state of dilemma. However, I am assuming that she had a taste and experience of what obeying God feels like. Therefore, she took that step forward and went ahead with it.

Obedience and it’s Consequences:

Every Obedience has it’s own consequences. Depending on whom I am listening to. If I decipher at the right time, I might gain from that submission and if I don’t then I might get bitter, not only that but I might not even listen to that person again, because of the consequences that I’ve had to suffer. Or, even if I happen to listen to that person again, I may be filled with doubt or become restless. I lose my peace.

My Obedience or submission is based on my faith level. The confidence that I show towards God helps me to obey him in FAITH. Which means, though I can’t see what comes next, I have already taken a step forward. I have submitted to Him. I personally believe, hearing God and taking a step of Faith is a fool proof decision towards obedience. We will never be disappointed. It only calls for a miracle. I have experienced many miracles in life. Not because I was brilliant at obeying God but I had none to depend on. That’s what I believe, God wants to tell us today. Listen to His voice, the still soft voice that comes from within and around.

Hebrews 11: 8 – 12

⁸ By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ¹¹ And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she^[b] considered him faithful who had made the promise. ¹² And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

1 Samuel 15: 22

But Samuel replied: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

Obedience is a choice. it’s not instant. We obey either out of fear or love.

To obey is a blessing, disobedience is painful we learnt this in Sunday school.

Obedience comes easily with authorities but not with people lower than us or equal to us. Atleast, we can blame it on the authorities. Example: My employer said that so I did it. If I say my subordinate said that, and so I did, then people will think I am a fool. Let’s look at this story:

Naman story. 2 Kings 5

He was a man in command, still he obeyed. he was healed.

 Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.^[a]

² Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. ³ She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

⁴ Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. ⁵ “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents^[b] of silver, six thousand shekels^[c] of gold and ten sets of clothing. ⁶ The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”

⁷ As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”

⁸ When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.”⁹ So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰ Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

¹¹ But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. ¹² Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.

¹³ Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” ¹⁴ So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

¹⁵ Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”

It was a choice made by him, either obey the girl or disobey the girl and submit to his ego and bask in his pride. However, I am glad he chose the other way round.

Lord, help me to obey. Help me to listen.

If people were true to the first commandment, obedience to the remaining nine would follow naturally. It is because they are unsound in this that they break the others.  (D.L. Moody).

A missionary translator was endeavouring to find a word for “obedience” in the native language. This was a virtue seldom practiced among the people into whose language he wanted to translate the New Testament. As he returned home from the village one day, he whistled for his dog and it came running at full speed. An old native, seeing this, said admiringly in the native tongue. “Your dog is all ears.” The missionary knew he had his word for obedience. (Ministers’ Research Service).

To sum it up:

1. Obedience is not always pleasant, it’s walking on fire.
2. Obedience or submission is based on my faith level.
3. Obedience needs discernment.
4. Obedience needs humility. Listening to our mentors, plays a vital role in our life. Listening to our leaders. Listening to our parents / children. It definitely goes back to discernment and humility.
5. Finally, obedience to God is fool proof.

Generally, it so happens with me that I hear God first, correcting me or instructing me something and I see the same as an evidence through many people, as you may call it, a confirmation that I should go for it. Then, I realize that yes, God had told this to me. It becomes easier to obey and submit, knowing that God is in control. Discernment along with obedience goes a long way.

Jesus obeyed His father till the cross. Jesus summed up all of it on the cross. Obedience to God is fool proof. Jesus was lifted up for his Obedience to God. He was considered as disobedient by the Pharisees but Jesus knew what He had to do. Cross was not easy. Yet He went ahead having full confidence in what His Father had planned. It calls for Faith. Jesus did not succumb to extreme pressure.

Sandra wife of Virjil .   The New Hope Community is situated in the heart of the city between Old and New Panvel. We can confidently share that New Hope Community is a Church in Kamothe, Church in Khandeshwar, Church in Khanda Colony, Church in Panvel, Church in New Panvel because we are centrally located and these places surround our church Venue.