Thursday, October 30, 2008

Obedience

Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe. Doing exactly what the Lord commands, doing it joyfully. Action is the key; do it immediately. Joy you will receive. Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe. Some of you might have heard this children's song before, some of you might not have. The song contains amazing insight, even as just a little children's chorus. It can be broken up into separate phrases to further be analyzed. "Doing exactly what the Lord commands." How many times does God tell us to do something, but we do it our own way and in our own time? It has to be full obedience or no obedience, because partial obedience isn't truly obedience. Our pastor's daughter explained it to the kids this way: Say your mom tells you to clean your room, and she wants you to pick everything up and take your trash out. You really aren't in the mood to clean up, so you hurriedly stuff all your toys under the bed and stomp on the garbage in your trash can until it looks as though there is hardly any trash in there. Your mom asks you if you've cleaned your room like she asked. "Yes!" you tell her and think, "That wasn't so hard." That's not really obeying. Your room might look better, but its not really all the way clean. Not to mention that you didn't follow your mom's instructions exactly. Another phrase of the song says, "Doing it joyfully." Hmmm. Yeah, sometimes doing things aren't as hard as doing them joyfully. I've been guilty of doing this more than once when told to do something - especially when told to practice piano. Reluctantly, I would half-heartedly drag myself over to the piano and pull the bench out and plop down, frowning the whole time. My parents always seemed to pick the most inopportune times to tell me to practice, and I really didn't want to. When God asks us to do some things, we may take the view I did in practicing. It's a chore, but I guess I'll do it since it pleases my Father. We realize that whatever God is asking us to do will no doubt benefit us in our walk with Him, but He seemingly has picked an inopportune time to call us to do that. Why can't we just wait a little longer, you know, just go on our own time, God? Why now? And we complain and drag our feet the whole way, at the same time thinking that we are being such good children of God to obey Him the way we do. However, God has called us to be joyful in whatever we do for Him. Obedience simply isn't just doing something you're told to do - it is doing exactly what your asked when you're asked to do it without complaining and dragging your feet the whole way.

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