As much as she knew what she had to do, Gina bristled at the thought of going through with giving it up. She’d been doing it so long that it felt like a part of her. Every time she put it aside, Gina felt like she had cut off an arm or a leg. She knew that it was bad for her health, bad for her character, and bad for her reputation. Indeed, Gina knew that it was interfering with her relationship with God. She knew that it competed with God for her attention and devotion, and that God could not do more for her as he desired until she gave it up. Yet doing so just felt so hard, even though she knew it was right and necessary.
Obedience
Knowing what you should and must do is one thing. Doing it is another thing. Obedience is not a popular word in the world’s way. Disobedience is more like it. From birth, our nature is to rankle at instruction, bristle at direction, and bark or even bite at command. Yet accepting instruction, listening to direction, and obeying command can be critical for developing character, discipline, skill, and judgment. A household without respect, community without order, and government without authority just won’t function. If everyone goes their own way, rejecting instruction, against directions, and rebelling from authority, everyone pays in the confusion, chaos, and disorder. Obedience is a key ingredient to good character. Obedience is also a key ingredient to a functioning society, safe community, and secure nation.
Faithful
Obedience is both a mark of the faithful and a test for faithfulness. If one consistent action can do more to develop and prove faithfulness, that action may be obedience. If you wish to be more faithful, then obey. Christ’s beloved disciple John wrote in one of his letters that to love God is to keep his commandments. To love God is to obey him. We tend to equate love with strong sentiment. But the child who doesn’t obey the father isn’t loving the father, no matter what other sentiment the child shows. So instead, equate love with obedience. As Christ said, seek God’s kingdom first, to do his will. Don’t chase after your own food, clothing, and drink. Instead, obey. Christ said that God blesses those who hear his word and obey. Indeed, Christ said that whoever obeys his word will never die. In his last words before ascending to his Father, Christ said to teach others to obey everything he had commanded. Even the wind, waves, and evil spirits obeyed Christ. So should we.
Authority
Obedience isn’t simply a matter of discipline, of forcing yourself to do as told. Obedience depends on respect for the authority of the one whom we must obey. The respect that obedience must show is not so much for the command or edict as it is for the authority of the one who gives it. Commands and edicts can look and feel arbitrary, even wrongheaded, especially under one’s own circumstances. You may see the sense in the rule, command, instruction, direction, or law. But for you to obey under your specific circumstances may still seem unnecessary. You, in other words, want to make your own judgment as to whether the edict should apply to you. Yet that would be to focus on the edict rather than the authority of the one who gives it. Your mother or father, your supervisor or director, even your teacher or preacher, may seem to have given you an unnecessary direction. Focus, then, on the authority. If, to respect the authority, you must obey, then do so. The apostle Paul, whom Roman authorities condemned to die for exhorting Christ, nonetheless made the remarkable claim that all authority is from God. Disobeying the edict may be rebelling against authority. Beware making your own judgments as to which commands to obey. Don’t, like Adam and Eve, reach too quickly for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Directions
Obedience is thus not just a habit and discipline but also an understanding and disposition. Yet obedience is also a disposition easy to shirk with indirection. Those who do not wish to obey may claim that they have inadequate directions. How can one obey God, for instance, when God resides so distant in heaven, isn’t aware of one’s circumstance, and hasn’t clearly given his command or preference? Authority, though, is never more distant than the instruction or command. Authority, God included, is present wherever the edict, instruction, or direction stands. And instruction, God’s included, is everywhere. The scriptures contain hundreds of commands, warnings, exhortations, and admonitions, with hundreds more illustrations of those commands. To claim that God has given one no guidance is to deliberately turn a blind eye. All one needs to do is read the scriptures for guidance and listen to the Spirit’s movement through one’s conscience. God gives abundant guidance for us to obey, just as we knew the rules our father and mother had for the house when we were growing up.
Application
Another excuse those who don’t wish to obey can make is that although they know the rules, guidance, and principles, they don’t know their application. Yet faith isn’t merely theological doctrine. The fundamentals of faith may be extraordinarily high minded, abstract, and ideal, when we live in a low minded, concrete, and far from ideal world. But that’s precisely the value of the heart that God gives us, that it’s not a complete set of finely tuned rules. The scriptures include specific guidance on many big issues like how to choose a spouse, how to be a good employee and employer, and how to be a good husband, wife, mother, and father. The scriptures also include guidance on dozens of mundane subjects from how to rise in the morning and how to adorn oneself, to how to prepare food and how to welcome a guest into your house. But the guidance is more application than principle, more illustration than generating value. Even where the scriptures offer no illustration or application, God has given the faithful the guiding account in the life of Christ. God has written his laws, rules, and instructions on our hearts.
Attributes
Obedience involves more than outward actions consistent with directions, commands, and rules. Obedience also involves fostering the commanded inward attributes. The scriptures don’t just teach external rules like how to care for oneself and relate to others. The scriptures also teach how to discern and what to pursue internally to develop and reveal the proper attributes. The scriptures instruct on pride versus humility, joy and sadness, diligence versus sloth, honor against offense, disclosure versus secrecy, generosity rather than stinginess, compassion instead of hardness, encouragement over oppression, and obedience rather than rebellion. Faith gives one an internal compass of favored attributes to show the path when rules and commands have not already marked the path out. If you’re unsure how to obey, consult the attributes of the faithful person, and they’ll light the way.
Awareness
A saving grace of obedience is that it fosters self-awareness. Those moments when one must choose between obeying or not hold up a mirror on one’s character and commitments. Those questions of obedience help us evaluate to whom we are listening, what we are prioritizing, and what are our attributes and values. Those moments requiring obedience help us look inward with candor to choose maturity and personal growth. If you want your character to improve, put yourself in positions requiring you to obey authority. The military is an extreme example. For a youth or young adult, a summer job will do nearly as well. Taking on supervisory positions where you must ensure that everyone obeys the rules, or serving in a church ministry where everyone must be constantly on their best behavior, can refine the character of adults. Accepting challenges to obey brings self-awareness, which opens the opportunity to improve.
Observation
Make a point of noticing obedience in yourself and others. That practice can help you improve your character for obedience, too. If to love God is to obey his commandments, then we should see love for God in the evidence of obedience. The apostle Paul names the fruits of the Holy Spirit as including love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When you see yourself or others exhibiting these attributes, you see not only obedience to God but also love for God. As the faithful draw close to God, you see in their actions the willingness to relinquish their time and agenda in favor of caring service to others. You see their joy in doing so, not their frustration. You see their peace of God, sensing his approval. You see their patience with themselves and others, willing to forgive. You see their kindness showing through their demeanor and actions. You see their goodness, gaining the appreciation and respect of others. You see their faithfulness, persevering and diligent. You see their gentleness and how they maintain their self-control. When you see the Spirit’s fruits, you know you’ve encountered obedience.
Reward
Obedience is therefore possible. The faithful can know God’s will in his word, can obey God’s commands, and can seek his desires in the Spirit’s discernment and power. The first small step is certainly within your reach. And once you begin on the path of obedience, its fruits will feed you, encouraging you toward greater obedience. You will see the fruits of your obedience in the quality of your actions and disposition, and receive the affirmation of others who benefit. Your conscience will then no longer condemn but instead approve you. Your standing among others will increase, as they learn to trust you and as they rely more on you. God will then give you more responsibility with the prospect for producing even greater benefit and receiving even greater reward. Obedience will turn the path of your life upward, toward an approving God. God gives us what we need to obey him. Do as Jesus did, setting your face like flint toward your God-given calling and goal, with God’s reward set firmly before you.
Reflection
Where do you have no problem with obedience, and where do you struggle with it? Why do you think you struggle with obedience where you do? Can you think of an example of someone you know who has a problem with obedience? What do you believe is the source of their problem? Do you exhibit that same problem from the same source, too? Have you disobeyed a rule or edict in an instance where the person responsible for enforcing it confronted you? What was your response? Did your response respect the authority behind the edict or rule? To whom or what do you turn when you’re unsure of what to do in a situation involving a moral or ethical question? Have you found answers in the scriptures to your questions of what to do? If so, what was the process through which you found those answers, whether general reading, specific searches, or sudden recall and inspiration? Think of instances when God rewarded your obedience beyond what you expected for it. Do you currently face a question of obedience where God may be preparing such a reward?
Key Points
Obedience is a key to faithful character and a sound society.
Obedience marks faithfulness and a love for God.
Obedience begins with respect for the authority issuing the rule.
Abundant instruction and direction exists to learn what to obey.
The scriptures give hundreds of examples for applying rules.
Reflect the right attributes in your actions where no rule exists.
Obedience keeps one aware of one’s own faithful character.
You can see evidence of your obedience in the Spirit’s fruits.
God rewards the faithful for their obedience to his word and desires.