I’m ever skeptical when people go on and on and off the cliff about how God is only after our obedience, and here’s why…
God’s after our hearts over everything else.
Tim Chester writes in his book, Captured By A Better Vision, “The call to holiness in the New Testament is not a call to duty, drudgery, repression and boredom, but always a call to joy, meaning, satisfaction and fulfillment.”
God’s not looking for obedience for obedience’s sake, duty based obligation isn’t what he is after. God’s looking for what pastor and blogger Brent Thomas calls “joyful obedience”. You can be as obedient as a well trained show dog but your heart can be a million and one miles away. On the other hand, joyful obedience is running through a mine field with half-a-smile on your face, if that’s where following Jesus takes you.
Rob Bell, who I’m not the biggest fan of but can still appreciate, re-counts the following in Sunday, from his hit series, Nooma. Bell tells of a husband who orders some flowers for his wife. The wife, appreciating the gesture, phones her husband to say, “You didn’t have to do that”… to which Bell reasons that the husband can then reply… “I know, they were on sale”, or, “It was the right thing to do”, or even, “You are my wife”.
That’s not the idea. This guy obviously doesn’t love his wife, he’s just going through the motions. Any true blue woman will tell you she doesn’t want to be loved by a man because he has to, she wants a man who wants to love her.
So, what possesses us to think God is any different?
I want you to show love,
not offer sacrifices.
I want you to know me
more than I want burnt offerings. ~Hosea 6:6, NLT
Like any caring father, we can be sure as the sun rose this morning that our heavenly Father desires our obedience, but when our obedience comes from anything other than a heart that says “Thank you for loving me and I love you too”… it’s nothing more than paying God lip service.
God’s looking for more than just our obedience.
Advertisement
Like this:
One blogger likes this post.
Hello Ken
Great post!
Obedience! Oh boy what an obstacle course! It is the thing which conservatives insist on and liberals ignore. It is the very thing that wrecked Saul and preserved the young David.
God, as you so wonderfully observed, is looking for something different than blind automatic obedience.
God took the greatest risk of all time when He gave us free will. For you see He risked losing us.
I can see the look in His eyes when the Lord warned Peter that he would deny Him. Just because Jesus knew it would happen didn’t mean it didn’t give Him pain. This then is why Peter did not get struck by a thunderbolt when he denied Jesus three times. Peter, just like the rest of us, had to learn that he could not depend on his own grit and wit. Had Peter been obedient he would not have learned this lesson, the Lord’s gentle and heart piercing forgiveness brought Peter a lot farther along than he would have been had he not stumbled. Peter’s heart had to be broken in the misery of his wretched human weakness, he had to be humbled to receive the full joy of what God was doing. God sees the potential and the beauty of each of our pains and regrets, and from them He reaps a great harvest. The one who made everything we see, from nothing, can make exquisitely beautiful things out of our faults if we will give them to Him, heartfelt obedience is one of those treasures.
God knows how to spot a smooth talker a million miles away. He knows those committed to him. Obedience must come from the heart of one surrendered to Christ.
The LORD says “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
~Isaiah 29 13