It's not a fluffy thing.
Lately I have often found myself trying to impress God through great sacrifice. Sweeping acts of servitude that reveal the extreme dedication of my faith. I know I have read in the Word that God delights in a self-sacrificing servant, and so the answer seemed easy. The more you sacrifice, the more you please the Lord.
However;
1 Samuel 15:22God had specifically told Saul not to sacrifice the plunder of his military conquest against the Amalekites, but instead to totally destroy everything, and yet Saul kept the best of the plunder, sacrificing a portion of it to the Lord. Up until this point Saul was a revered and blessed leader of Israel, but because of his disobedience to the Lord, he was replaced by a servant who consistently and earnestly listened to the Lord's commands and obeyed them. God advances the obedient, and holds back the over-zealous.
"Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as obeying the voice of the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams."
Obedience goes further than that though, not only in pleasing our Lord, but also in aiding us in navigating through the pitfalls of a sin-filled world. How can we seek righteousness without hearing the commands given to us in the Word and being obedient to it? With great difficulty, and with risk;
Romans 6:23Therefore earnestly seek his command, and delight in it! It is in obedient servitude to God that we can live the fullest lives. What a counter-intuitive idea for an instant gratification society!
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Psalm 112:1The Word couldn't be clearer on this. God wants us to immerse ourselves in his Word, seeking out his commands for our lives with the intention of putting them into practice. Rhetorical obedience is worth nothing compared to Biblical obedience. Therefore be the faithful servant who listens to his master's words, so that you may be congratulated for your faith.
"Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commands."
Romans 16:19That's what I hope the Lord will have to say for me when we meet.
"Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you."
peace out.
dan.
Hey Dan, interesting article, not sure whether I agree with all of it.
ReplyDeleteMy main issue is that you have put a lot of emphasis on obedience, without saying why we obey, or what we obey.
Do we obey out of duty? it seems that this is what you are implying, in which case i would have to wholeheartedly dissagree with you.
Who or What do we obey? I sincerely hope your choice there is God alone. But how do we know what he says? Is it through our teachers? Through the urgings of our sinful desires? I hope that's definitely not the case...
If we don't keep in mind who and why we are obeying, we cannot hope to truly obey God.
on a lighter note, i love the new side blurb thing =)
ReplyDeletehmmm... yes - i was more trying to just contrast the choice between obedience and sacrifice. and to chastise disobedience.
ReplyDeletei do not think we obey out of duty, but of out of loving servitude. The What i made clear a number of times (the Word!). obviously anointed teachers can impart his commands for us, as well as personal revelation through prayer - but that's not for this article.
the point, simply, was to obey, as opposed to disobeying.
hmm, yes actually, that's a good point that you made about you putting forward that we rely upon the word for guidance. I'll admit that i was wrong there (i should probably have a coffee before reading these articles late at night...)
ReplyDeleteblech, now that i think about it, i really needed that coffee =P, my goodness i was grumpy!
re reading the article i've just realised what an idiot that previous comment makes me feel like =P. sorry about that! you made a good point argued it well, and i just shot you down with no real basis... totally unfair of me!
I won't delete the previous comment however, just to provide myself with a reminder of how much of an idiot I can be...
ReplyDelete"The Word couldn't be clearer on this. God wants us to immerse ourselves in his Word, seeking out his commands for our lives with the intention of putting them into practice."
ReplyDeleteImmerse ourselves! Can't be any clearer than that, hey?! This is becoming my desire more n more, to have a daily Quiet time. Thank you for the challenge and encouragement to immerse tho, need to make that my daily priority.
Rell
funny chris :) i concur with mon!
ReplyDeleteYou concur with me? But I haven't said anything yet!!
ReplyDeleteI was just going to say sometimes obedience just for the sake of doing our duty rather than out of the love of it is essential! We're not always going to want to do what God wants us to do (even though things are always much better His way in the end) so sometimes we just have to grit our teeth and do what we know God wants us to do.
I know sometimes I don't want to do something but I know it's God's will so I just do it anyway, and God changes my heart along the way. Sometimes the decision to follow God even when we're raging against it inside is enough of a catalyst for God to do His stuff and sort me out!
For example, my Mum actually got me tithing pretty early on in life, I think she even convinced me to give away 10% of my pocket money when I was younger. When I started I didn't like it, I wanted to hang onto that money but I knew she was right and it was in the bible so I did it anyway even though I wasn't too keen on the whole idea. Years on from that, my tithe is something I don't even think about, it comes straight out of my pay and I'm now trying to stretch myself into being generous with offerings on top of tithes. I find titheing easy now and I love giving offerings and I know God's changed my heart about that over the years, and I'm sure it's due in part to my obedience.
Another example would be Dan and me being pretty strict about contacting each other and not spending time together for a few weeks about a month ago. We knew it was God's will and even though neither of us wanted to do it, we were obedient and did it anyway and it turned out to be really good for us.
Although ultimately in a perfect world our will would always be aligned with God and obedience wouldn't be necessary because we'd just want to do what God wants us to do anyway.
Rell, following on from what you said, I know Dan's been challenging me lately to get back into spending more time with God, and that's really good because I know I'm not being obedient to God when I neglect our time together. It's not always going to be easy but then, obedience is usually not an easy thing!
Love you guys.
Wow. That was almost a blog in itself.
ReplyDeleteGood blog Dan. Yes to obey is better than sacrifice, as long as remember that our obedience is in gratitude for what Christ has done for us, and not as a way of shoring up our salvation! It is hard to us not to want to do something to contribute to Christ atoning work on the Cross, and we cannot, ever. It is all of God, nothing of me! That said, only by immersing (love that word) ourselves in his Word the Bible, systematically, not just picking out the bits we know or like, and really getting an understanding of God's overarching plan for mankind, and seeing the promises of God in the OT being fulfilled, can we obey as then we will know what it is that pleases Him. The ten commandments are good for a start, they haven't been bypassed, just added to by Jesus! I learned today in College that in order to glorify God we just need to trust Him in every aspect of our lives.
ReplyDeletehey there...
ReplyDeleteso... a couple of thoughts on all that...
1. Saul's fault wasn't over-zealous sacrifice, but that he didn't want to do what God told him to do... God told him to utterly destroy everything - which is an act of sacrifice! he kept some of it - spoils of war - God wants me to prosper doesn't he? nup - he wants you to be obedient, to have faith in Him for your needs...
2. Love - not a feeling, but a default position... aka, to love God, is to please God first... to Love others, is to look out for their needs before my own... so, in that sense, we indeed are in a better position if we are motivated out of Love for the Lord... I love the Lord if i put his interests before my own. if my 'default position' is, "I Love the Lord, and I Love others", then the way i feel about doing a thing doesn't mean anything... it's irrelevant.
2 John 1:6
And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
Can you put up a photo without a muddled rubix cube please..
ReplyDeleteDriving me insane
Ah. Hadn't noticed.
ReplyDelete