To Be Christian is to Obey Christ
God has really developed my convictions regarding obedience. Obedience seems to be on every page of the Bible, Christ's teaching, and my quiet times lately. Jesus came to the earth in obedience, demonstrated what obedience to God looks like, and then willingly died on a tree - all out of complete devotion to His father.
Let's state what should be the obvious - complete devotion to Jesus is complete devotion to obeying Him. We cannot separate the two.
One who claims to recognize Jesus Christ as the radiance of the Glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature (Hebrews 1) and who claims to believe that they have fallen short of that glory, and thus deserving of death just as every man / woman since Adam / Eve was deserving, (Genesis 3, Romans 3) and believes that Christ died to pay that penalty, so that we might be redeemed to the Father himself (1 Peter 3:18) . . . then the response should be repentance. The response must be a commitment to obey. For one who claims to believe they are deserving of death ought not partake in what made him such deserving.
In short, there is no such thing as a person who believes Christ, and keeps on disobeying Christ. There is no such thing as a disobedient Christian.
Now let's be clear, obeying God doesn't make you a Christian - no action has saving power, lest man be given license to boast. In God's great love for us, he bestows upon us grace and mercy, proven in the giving of his Son, and it is only through Christ's blood that our sins are washed away, and only by our faith that are we saved. Not because of anything we have done, but because of our faith in him - which He is the author anyway (Hebrews 12).
It's this faith that I call attention to - for obedience and faith in Christ are nearly synonymous according to Scripture. Faith without works is dead (James 2). Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him (1 John 2). To believe Jesus is to obey Jesus, for how can one truly believe that Christ is the creator of all things, and yet refuse to submit to His authority. To refuse to make obedience the major focus of our life is to deny Jesus as the Lord of our life.
Be encouraged, dear reader; obedience is not just a matter of following a myriad of rules, but the seeking of out Lord and a commitment to please Him. For in our pursuit of obedience, our eyes and minds are opened to more and more of Who He Is (John 14:21).
Like a child with his father, our obedience brings us into closer relationship with him. Obedience brings a maturity in Christ that reveals the perfect purpose of His commandments while simultaneously unlocking deeper and deeper revelations of His heart. For what we may not understand it as children, and the act of denying ourselves feels restrictive, we discover this "restrictive obedience" truly lead to our development into new creatures, and proves to give us more peace and freedom than the anxious bondage of sin we once desired (John 8:34). Let us not be like Israel, who so quickly forgot the promise of a new life, but desired instead to return in bondage in Egypt.
Those who take Jesus at His word comply with his rules and statutes and find them no burden (1 John 5:3) but life-giving. The find following His will is far better than anything their mere mortal minds could have imagined. By denying themselves to obey Christ, they find hating their lives in this way allowed them to save them - for nothing is better than to fully place your life in the hands of He who knows all and loves all.
In short, learning to obey is the whole point of the Christian life - and when Christ returns, Revelation is very clear: the scrolls will be opened, and many will be wiped off the face of the earth, and Jesus will be pleased, because what he started on the cross will be completed: the end of sin - the final destruction of the disobedient.
Comments
Post a Comment