Obedience

Obedience is an effect, not a cause. Many Christians (including myself) have lived as though obedience were the cause. Certainly we wouldn’t claim obedience brings salvation, but what about a good life? What about a good relationship with God? Obedience is not a catalyst that brings change in your relationship with God, relationship with God is a catalyst that brings change in your obedience. I firmly believe that if you live your life with the idea that obedience has any effect on your relationship with God, you will live absent of peace, joy, and the abundant life of rest that Christ came for. I can say that, because that’s how I’ve lived most of my life, and for the majority of life I’ve lived striving for something I’ve already been given.

As I was growing up, my obedience came from wanting to avoid consequences. Disobedience was the cause that brought about a negative effect. If I started fighting with Luke, maybe I would have to go to my room. At school, if I pulled a friends chair out from underneath them (sorry Hannah) I had to move my clothespin. At college, if I study hard I get good grades. It’s a pretty simple system. Do good, get good. Do bad, get bad. So isn’t that how God relates to us? Sow obedience; reap good relationship. Sow disobedience; reap ‘not-so-good’ relationship. Sorry, but that’s Buddhism. God doesn’t operate under a system of Karma. At salvation you received His Righteousness in Christ Jesus, and God now is only able to relate to you according to His Righteousness that has been given to you. He cannot relate to you according to your sin because He has once and for all dealt with sin at the cross.

But doesn’t God desire our obedience in response to our salvation? This idea has permeated our thinking saying that obedience is the thing God desires most. It’s not. You are. You are the object of the His affection. You are His beloved. Just as a husband desires his bride, so Christ desires you. As you strive for obedience, you are like the wife that lives her life only to serve her husband rather than to spend time with him. If the husband wanted a maid, he could have hired one. He wanted a bride though, and as the bride of Christ, His call to you today is one of intimacy not of service. And beyond that, His call to intimacy isn’t a precursor to His call for obedience. His motivation for intimacy is for intimacy. He desires relationship for relationship. He has no ulterior motives. To live as a slave is to mock the cross of Christ. He did not die on the cross to receive a mob of slaves, but to receive His beloved bride.

Am I saying that obedience should not be a point of focus in your life? Yes. An obedience focused life is one not focused on Christ. Growing up, we learn a system where obedience brings rewards and disobedience reaps punishment. The purpose of this system is first and foremost protection, not relationship. As a child if I have no punishment for running out in the street, I will continue to run out into the street. Once again, this system isn’t designed first and foremost for relationship.

As I’ve grown up and I’ve come out of a rewards/punishment based system, my parents have become two of my best friends. The purpose of the ‘karma’ based system was to protect me and bring me to relationship. The law was there to protect me when I was a child. Now that I’ve grown up I don’t need this law to protect me and I’m free to walk in intimate relationship with my parents. And I can tell you this; there are no two people that I respect more now because I know them as friends. When they ask me to do something, it is no longer even a choice, it just happens. Beyond that, they rarely have to ask, because I know what blesses them. I become free to pour that out on them because I love them, not because I want to earn favor or rewards. It is not me trying to obey for relationship. It’s intimate relationship expressing itself in love.

“But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” – Galatians 3:23-27

God’s doesn’t want you close to Him so He can order you around easily. He wants you sitting on His lap because there is nothing He loves more than having your head leaning up against His chest, just resting. When you feel the way His heart beats for you, you become free to love Him back. I would make a claim that obedience isn’t hearing and doing, but knowing and resting. If you can keep yourself from doing it, it’s not Christ living through you, it’s you striving for something you already have. Jesus didn’t have to fight with Himself to heal the sick and raise the dead. His twelve disciples couldn’t have held Him back from raising Lazarus from the dead because His desires were one with the Father’s desires and His desires burn far brighter than the desires of your flesh. When you walk in relationship with the God of the universe, your Spirit comes alive and puts to death the desires of your flesh, so that obedience is no longer a choice, but an expression of something much deeper.

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” – Galatians 5:16