To Love is to Obey
How many of us love God? Hopefully if you are reading this blog you do and have a developing relationship with Him. However I would like to ask you a question. How easy is it to obey Him? To answer this question let me tell you a story.
I have a daughter who is roughly three years old right now. If have ever heard the phrase the terrible twos you and have a three year old you know the twos may be terrible but the threes are tortuous. We love her very much and she loves us but sometimes she gets stubborn, maybe even obstinate. Whatever you want to call it it’s ugly! She often while throwing a temper tantrum will roll around on the ground screaming, “I want to Obey!!!” Today I had an incident with her that was frustrating, humorous, and enlightening. We were trying to get her to play in the living room where we could see her but she wanted to play in her bed room. She began crying and having a fit. I finally got her to come where we could see her and she had a melt down.
Her: I want to be in my ROOM!
Me: We need you to stay out here were we can see you.
Her: I don’t want to be HERE I want to play in my Room.
Me: I’m sorry you may want to play in your room but could you play out here?
Her: But I LOVE you Daddy
Me: I love you too, now can you obey me?
Her: I WANT to obey!
Me: Then play in the living room.
Her: I WANT to obey in my ROOM!
Now I’ll admit it didn’t go quite like that. If you know a three year old you know there was a lot of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. But that was the flow of the “conversation. While it was very frustrating dealing with a three year old who’s logic seems a little faulty. It was funny. I have no doubt that if I were to look at her and say, “You want to play in your room, that’s OK, Mommy and I will stop what we were doing and move into your room to make sure you don’t flip your toddler bed over for the millionth time.” She would have obeyed me and continued to play. However, I’m sure you all know that that is not obeying.
It can be hard to obey when we want something so much. Like a three year old screaming, I want to obey we have every intention of doing what God wants but only if He would change that one thing I really don’t want to do. Or if He would just come out and say in a more obvious way. Or if he would just make the fleece wet one more time. You get the picture. We want to obey. But we think Obedience should be easy.
Let’s face it sometimes God makes some decisions that we don’t like and it is so easy to say, “I followed your order X number of times. Can’t I have this once to my self.” I am reminded of two main passages that remind us of the importance of Obedience. “To obey is better than sacrifice.” 1 Sam 15:22 and John 14:15 “If you love me you will obey my commandments.” God is not impressed by our desire to obey Him. Neither is He impressed by how much we have good feelings toward Him. No, God cares about how much we obey him.
If it’s hard to relate with a three year old”s tantrum think of it this way.
To not make a choice is to make a choice not to change. Now many of you are scratching your heads going what does this have to do with worship? Well, that’s a good question. The Greek word for worship literally translated means to kiss toward. Worship is one way we express our love to God. Next week I want to continue this thought with a look at what worship is. And hopefully we can broaden our views of worship.
