Blogging A to Z: O
I know I was MIA for awhile and there is no excuse for it. :? I was here in spirit. :)
So, I am going to count my series on Castrating our Husbands as "N" for nagging in my blogging from A to Z stint. This brings me to "O".
As the title reveals, O is for obedience.
A Christian's obedience to God is often misused and misunderstood in many circles, especially among nonbelievers, but even among Christians themselves.
We train our children to be obedient, so they learn respect for authority and grow to become well-behaved, well-mannered, respectful adults. This is where most of us develop our understanding of what it means to be obedient and why. Unfortunately, the obedience training of many children create adults with a warped idea of obedience to God. We get the idea that God is sitting up in heaven with a gigantic paddle, waiting for us to mess up so He can correct us. We expect disobedience to be followed by harsh consequences so, to "stay out of trouble", we obey out of fear. I held this belief for most of my life, many years after accepting Jesus.
Praise be to God, I have since developed a new understanding of what it means to obey God as a born-again, Bible believer. Dictionary.com lists the word "deference" as a synonym for obedience. I find this to be the perfect word to describe a Christian's obedience to God.
As my relationship with Jesus has matured, my understanding of Him has too, and thus my love for Him. Jesus tells us in John 14:15 if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. I have learned to obey, not out of fear per se, but because I defer my life to Him. I submit humbly to Him because I know that He truly does have good things planned for me; He will never lead me wrong. Father does know best.
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:27
Admittedly, I too grew up with a misconstrued view of obedience to God. Yes, we mostly do it out of fear. That shouldn't be the case. Thanks for making us understand "deference".
ReplyDeleteMarcia... this was beautiful. Very well written.
ReplyDeleteFor God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ~John 3:16
Grace, peace and blessings, Carla
Thank you for this post. Your comment about how we try to raise our children to be obedient and good adults was a good reminder. Even as adults we should still be striving for the same thing for ourselves. Too many people forget that at times.
ReplyDeletea very wonderful look at obedience!
ReplyDeleteObedience thats what my 2 little ones were studying in homeschool bible! They now understand what obedience is about, and us as adults sometimes need a fresh reminder!
ReplyDeleteI love this, I think many times we have a very skewed view of obedience. Thanks for reminding us yet again what true obedience as a believer is.
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