Trust and Obey

 

Obedience

Scripture: Philippians 2:7-8 (ESV)

. . . [Jesus] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Devotion:

          Today, we are going to consider obedience. This term sometimes makes those in our culture bristle at the thought of having to be obedient to anyone. Yet the scripture is full of examples of obedience. Even Jesus was obedient to his earthly parents in Luke 2:51 we find “51 Then [Jesus] went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.” If Jesus was obedient to Mary and Joseph (thus obeying the commandment to “honor your father and mother) so, should we be obedient to both our earthly and heavenly parents.

          Still our world tells us we don’t need to obey God. We have become a culture disobedient to all authority. We have riots in our cities. We have even had a riot at our capitol back in January. Some children in our schools have even been told to disobey their parents. (As if children needed any encouragement in that direction.) This movement toward disobeying authority will continue, however, Christians should take a different stand.

          Living as a Christian means living a life of obedience. We are to obey our parents, teachers, pastors, and of course God. The only exception to our obedience is when someone tells us to disobey God. The Apostles disobeyed the religious leaders of their day. In the book of Acts, we read: “27 And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them, 28 saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” 29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:27-29) ESV

          So clearly when the choice is to be obedient to God or humans, we go with obeying God. It should be obvious to us by now that we are under an obligation to obey whether we feel like it or not. This I know is a hard teaching to follow as the human heart wants to do what it wants to do regardless of whether it is the obedient thing to do or not. Rules seem to be made to be broken. Whether it is driving a little over the speed limit because we know the police will give us some leeway if they see us going 5 miles an hour over the posted limit all the way to cheating a little bit on our taxes.

          Our nature has been to disobey ever since Eve took a bite of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. With a little prompting from enemy of our souls Eve and then Adam were enticed to break the only rule God had laid down for them. It took Jesus to come and live a completely obedient life for humankind to have a chance at living life of perfect obedience. Praise be to Jesus for our victory over sin and death through his obedience even to the cross.

 

Prayer

          Lord hear us when we pray our prayer of thanksgiving for giving us the gift of your true son Jesus to deliver us from bondage to disobedience and sin. Glory to His holy name and all praise to our God the great Trinity. Keep us from willful sin and deliver us into your wonderful kingdom of light. Help us to be faithful to you God. Amen.