Obeying

Why Obey?

Why choose the word obey to describe what life with Jesus should look like? Aren't there a myriad of other, more inspirational words that can be used to describe our relationship with Jesus? Surely love would be best? Or perhaps serve? What about follow?

While there are certainly a near infinite numbers of words that I could choose to insert as I discuss what my relationship with God should look like (or your relationship with God, which you care about more than mine), I'd venture a guess that obey wouldn't have made your top ten list? It has a kind of Orwellian vibe, conjuring up simultaneous images of Big Brother and a patronizing parent to a child who cannot understand the reason he isn't allowed to eat a half-gallon of ice cream for dinner. Obey. Period.

Yet I'd like to show a few examples in the scriptures as to why obey is the perfect description of how we are to relate to God. In a phrase, we obey because God commands it.

1. If you love me, you will obey my commands (John).

2. Not all who say to me "Lord, Lord" will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but on the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven. (Matthew 7)

3. Faith, without deeds, is dead. (James 1 or 3)

4. To obey is better than a thousand sacrifices (paraphrase to King Saul).

To love Jesus is to obey Jesus. They cannot be divorced from one another. To divorce love from obedience is what pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to as cheap grace. Love that demands nothing of us is not really love. This is a false apprenticeship to Jesus that denies the power of the Holy Spirit to work.