Obedience

            “but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.”

(John 14:31 ESV)

Many years ago, while on vacation in Austria, we visited our friends Valinda and Mark Kimmel, and because Mark was on a mission trip to Romania, we took a day trip to then Czechoslovakia with Val and her two children, Page and Andrew; who are now grown and married.  The children were being children when Val, ask them to stop doing whatever they were doing, and though they heard their mother, they kept doing what she had ask them to stop.  Valinda said, “children, your actions are not obedience; obedience is doing exactly what you are told, the first time you are told to do it, all else is rebellion.”   (That is not an exact quote, but close after so many years.) 

What Val said to Page and Andrew had a huge effect on me, I was fifty years old, had a grown daughter and this young lady who Jan and I had watched grow-up opened my eyes to a wonderful truth.  It was as if God had spoken to me, Bob, do you believe that anything less than obeying the first time I ask you is rebellion?  Lord, I just wanted to see Czechoslovakia, but because you made it so clear, I am in agreement that anything less is rebellion.

Jesus, the Son of God (Matthew 3:17), Jesus the Creator (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16), and Jesus who testified the following in John 10:30 said, “I and the Father are one.”   He is, He always will be, and He always has been obedient to His Father.  Do you recall earlier in chapter 14 when Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father,” and this was Jesus’ reply; “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. (John 14:9-11 ESV)

Jesus came to earth with this mindset; not as God in an earth suit, but as man who knew that He was God in the flesh, to be an example He chose to become lower than His creation, “You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.”

(Hebrews 2:7-10 ESV)

I must report that the conversation, that was heard in the car on that day trip to Czechoslovakia, with the Lord, still comes to my mind often, “Bob, anything less than doing it the first time I ask is rebellion.”  Often, I respond to the Lord like I respond to Jan when she is speaking to me while I’m watching a thriller on television; I just tune Him out.  I am learning that the remote has a pause button, and I can push and listen to my bride who is of much greater value than anything on that television.  Jesus, our Master and Lord has given us the ability to set our minds, so that we stop the urgent or not so urgent, and tune into the important, the voice of the One who spoke the world into being.

Isaiah the great prophet, set his mind on hearing and obeying, what a lesson we can learn from Isaiah 6:8, “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”   In John 10:3, Jesus is referring to Himself as the Gatekeeper, and you and I, who are in Christ, as the sheep; listen to what he shares with us, “To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” (John 10:3 ESV)  Could our problem be our lifestyle is too busy, it isn’t conducive to hearing God’s voice, much less doing what He tells us the first time He tells us?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice