The Key to All Doors

Obedience is the key to all doors; feelings come (or don't come) and go as God pleases. We can't produce them at will, and mustn't try.

- C. S. Lewis, Letters of C. S. Lewis

Obedience vs Expedience

The life of the Christian should be a process of becoming more and more like Christ. Our hearts should long for our lives to manifest His character. We should desire to act as He would in any given situation. We profess to love Him and follow Him, and it should be our deepest desire to be like Him.

Jesus did what was obedient, regardless of whether or not it was expedient. Above all else, Jesus' life was one of utter obedience, and it behooves us to examine the degree to which obedience is characteristic in us as Christians.

As we strive for obedience, we must be careful not to accept obedience grudgingly as the price of salvation and wind up with a life of cranky devotion, devoid of joy or gratitude. Obedience not only is the response of a heart grateful for salvation but also the way by which we enter into rest - true rest - God's rest.

Obedience is Foundational

When we are faced with not getting what we want - or not getting it when we want it - then we see whether the faith that we profess is built on rock or sand. When we are faced with giving up something out of obedience to God then we see how secure the foundation of our faith really is.

Obedience is basic. If we are calling Jesus "Lord" but are not acknowledging His Lordship in the choices that we make and in the actions that we take, we are hypocrites indeed.

Obedience is Volitional

Obedience must be more important to us than expedience; doing what is right must be more important than getting what we want; glorifying God must be more important than satisfying self.

The kind of obedience that we are to cultivate requires a continual choosing of that which is godly and a continual rejection of that which is not godly. The making of righteous choices is both a means by which God creates a Christlike character in us and a manifestation of that character as it develops.

Obedience is a choice. We must be continually choosing to obey no matter how impractical, inefficient, or ineffective it seems.

Obedience is Possible

If our lifestyle is to be one of obedience, obedience must penetrate every aspect of our lives. We cannot choose to be obedient only when it is easy or costs us nothing. Obedience must be a choice that we undertake in every aspect of our lives, recognising that God's grace makes it possible for us to obey.

Obedience is Costly

Making holy choices often means making hard choices. Sometimes obedience means giving up something greatly desired, perhaps without understanding why. Abraham must have felt this way, his knife poised to take Isaac's life. Why should God require me to give Him my son's life? he must have wondered.

But God did not want Isaac's life - He wanted Abraham's heart. He wants our hearts as well, and giving them to Him might require surrendering something or someone we don't want to live without.

Do we direct our own lives, or are they under God's direction? Do we insist upon self-sovereignty, or have we yielded sovereignty over our lives to the Lord?

Obedience is costly. But the price that God paid to establish a relationship with us - wherein it is even possible for us to be obedient - was costlier still.

Obedience is Distinctive

Consider Paul's words in his letter to the Philippians:

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

The way we ought to treat one another is simply expressed, if not always simply executed: we humble ourselves and place the interests of others above our own interests out of love, being obedient to the command of our God, even as our Lord "did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!"

That is the kind of humility that we need to adopt in dealing with each other - humility that is expressed in obedience even unto the death of our own dreams, our own desires, and our own selfish ends. That is the love of Christ, and that is the love with which we are privileged to love one another as His followers.

By Obedience, We Enter into God's Rest

By obeying God, we enter into a rest that results from being utterly dependent on Him, relying on His activity and agenda rather than our own.

And perhaps it is time for us to recognise obedience as the quintessential expression of our faith - we obey, not because we hope to gain from it, but because it is the proper response of a heart that trusts in God. Instead, the world has programmed us for expedience. We desire to have what we want, when we want it. But we must supplant the desire for expedience with the desire for true obedience.

All other relationships grow out of this: that we love first and most fervently the One who has saved us and set us free. It begins with a choice - a choice to serve Him rather than to serve ourselves; a choice to do what is obedient, even if by doing so we forfeit what we desire; a choice to pursue righteousness, even when it is costly.

Are we willing to make that choice?

- William P. Risk, Dating & Waiting

Links: He keeps the key (12 Aug 10), Waiting on God (24 Dec 10)