OBEDIENCE,WHAT IS IT?

On an outside wall of the Brazilian Army Academy, cadets can read the words "You will command. So learn to obey!"

John Kenneth Galbraith, a Canadian American economist (1908-2006) in his autobiography, A Life in Our Times, illustrates the devotion of Emily Gloria Wilson, his family's housekeeper:
It had been a wearying day, and I asked Emily to hold all telephone calls while I had a nap. Shortly thereafter the phone rang. Lyndon Johnson was calling from the White House.
"Get me Ken Galbraith. This is Lyndon Johnson."
"He is sleeping, Mr. President. He said not to disturb him."
"Well, wake him up. I want to talk to him."
"No, Mr. President. I work for him, not you. When I called the President back, he could scarcely control his pleasure. "Tell that woman I want her here in the White House."
It is rare to find such unwavering loyalty and prompt obedience. Obedience is not a popular concept and is altogether scorned by skeptics. It is seldom preached from the pulpit, yet the Bible talks a great deal on this subject. There are several examples of people who obey God. In Luke 1:17, we read John the Baptist came “to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Jesus after he rose from the dead called his frightened disciples and said, Matt 28:18-20 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” If it was not for the disciple’s obedience to the great commission, where we would be today?

Those who excel in life are the ones who have learned to obey the Lord. I wonder how many of us have learned obedience in childhood? Obedience ties in with parenting and child raising. Not many parents these days expect obedience from their children. Dr. Sears a Christian pediatrician who teaches on attachment parenting writes about that “so few children obey because so few parents expect them to obey.” Yet the wise parent knows that teaching obedience to a child is imperative for the child's success. From the time a child is about one year old a parent can start teaching and expecting a child to listen and obey, the earlier the easier.
The wonderful opportunity that God grants parents is to build relationship with their children. God has beautifully designed marriage, sexuality and family. The way a child is conceived in the mother’s womb and snugly grows there for 9 months before it is born and a child’s dependency on the loving care of a mother and father is all meant to foster relationship and trust. Psalm 22:9 “You made me trust in you even at my mother’s breasts.”

When a child is consistently and lovingly cared for, trust is build and when trust is build obedience is easily learned. The truth is few of us have learned obedience growing up, partial obedience and respect at best I guess. By nature we all were born sinners as a result we are bent more to disobedience than to obedience both to our parents and as adults towards God and authority figures. When we were saved and born again into God’s family. God has become our father, we are His children. As we get to know Him better we are thrilled to discover that God is the perfect parent and that He loves us without limit. Wow! What is your response to the amazing love of God for you? What does God look for in His children? Obedience! Why is it so important?

Obedience has to do with boundaries and limits. It is the recognition of ones place in the grand scheme of things, that I am not God, I am not ultimately in charge, and I don't own all the wisdom in the world. A child who is told not to touch the stove and does it anyway gets hurt.

Certain things are not good and right for us if we go ahead and do those things anyway we get hurt. Have we learned yet that God loves us so much that he has laid out clear guidelines for right living? Or do we have no such trust and do we kick and scream at the very thought of obeying God? Let’s find out.

I. WHY OBEDIENCE TO GOD IS IMPORTANT?

For God, obedience is far more important than anything else because everything depends either on our obedience to God or our disobedience. We realize that obedience is not something that we acquire from birth, but it is learned along the way sometimes it is learned the hard way. We can learn something about obedience from the way Arabian horses are trained.
Arabian horses go through rigorous training in the deserts of the Middle East. The trainers require absolute obedience from the horses, and test them to see if they are completely trained. The final test is almost beyond the endurance of any living thing. The trainers force the horses to do without water for many days. Then he turns them loose and of course they start running toward the water, but just as they get to the edge, ready to plunge in and drink, the trainer blows his whistle. The horses who have been completely trained and who have learned perfect obedience stop. They turn around and come pacing back to the trainer. They stand there quivering, wanting water, but they wait in perfect obedience. When the trainer is sure that he has their obedience he gives them a signal to go back to drink. Now this may be severe but when you are on the trackless desert of Arabia and your life is entrusted to a horse, you had better have a trained obedient horse. Similarly we must accept God's training and obey Him.

Jesus modeled obedience to God throughout his life from his childhood on until his death on the cross. But it did not come easily for him, he had to learn it. In Hebrews 5:7-9 “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

In the garden of Gethsemane his obedience was challenged. During his ministry he taught his disciples unless you pick up your cross and follow me you are not my disciples. Now his very own teaching was being tested, will he go to the cross willingly or not? At that moment everything with in him must have cried out and said it is too hard, give up and let go of your rescue mission. He could have given up infact he cried out saying, (Matt 26: 39) “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me, but thank God he did not, he wanted to obey His father all the way so he said “yet not as I will but as you will.” That is called the total obedience.

Paul brought out this total surrenderance and obedience to God the father in Philippians 2:5-8 “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, 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.” His father saying, up then Salvation would not have been made possible.”

If Jesus being the son of God needed to learn obedience how could we not learn? What makes us think that obedience is not a big deal? Obedience to God should not be drudgery thing, rather when we obey him we are remaining in his love. John 15:10 “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.”
Either you are a seasoned Christian or a baby Christian we all need to learn the art of obeying God. It has not been always easy for me to obey him there were times I disobeyed him, but the most important decisions in my life were born out of obedience God. Very early in my Christian walk I realized that I can not lead others to obey Christ if I myself am not obedient. To the degree we follow to the same degree we can lead others. May the Lord help all of us to grow in the grace of obedience?