The Logic of Obedience

The Logic of Obedience

3/29/17

The truth about obedience is that many of us do not like to commit to this phrase because it means not following our own will.  In many circles, this word is not even recognized on any level with the exception of our own lives, and then that is not always intact.  A logical process takes place when we obey and usually, things are a lot easier in stature in these conditions.  The Bible gives us a great deal of information concerning this truth and information that holds the key to our lives and eternity as well, another reason why the world does not want this word to become a mainstay in our heart’s vocabulary.  However, unless we return to this root word’s Originator, our lives shall continue to decrease in unity and spiral out of control on a spiritual level which is a level that our Originator cannot look upon.

During my life, I have heard many people argue the fact that the Bible makes no sense and that its logic is way off target.  This should not come as a surprise to those who live by the Word of God and have hidden its content inside their heart, because when a person who is bound by the world will think accordingly and therefore react as such.  This can be a problem since many of the people in the Christian world do not understand how to talk with these people and thus end up dividing further the ties between the participants.  But when one begins to process that God has a specific order about Him and that He cannot deviate from that order in any way, some things become clearer to our finite minds and hearts as to why He does the things that He does.

How many out there have disobeyed your parents?  I know that my hand will be the first one to be raised for I cannot lie and say that I did not.  Now, it took a “few” times before I came to the understanding that it was not a good idea to lie to them because they almost always found out what was going on in my life, sometimes even before I got home.  Talk about not having a chance, lol.  But while I was struggling with the concept of obedience I had no idea that God would be using me as a witness for Him someday and that obedience would play a huge role in this part of mine.  It took me a while to figure out that if I just simply told the truth that things may seem a tad rough at that moment, all would be ok for the future and that if I tried to cover up my disobedience with disobedience my life would stay in turmoil for a lot longer, including my butt.  In my opinion, this is where the phrase two negatives don’t make a positive comes into play.

As I reminisce about those dark days of lying, I can remember my mind doing its best to think of a way to embellish the truth yet keep my parents occupied enough mentally that would buy me enough time for things to blow away.  Even though my thought process was secure, so I thought, they always found out at a later time the truth which when occurred provided me an additional time away from things that I wanted to do.  I also must contend that as I look back at my life and all the times that I lied or disobeyed my parents that it separated me from them in a way most divisive and to have their trust in me again longer.  Think about what God just said here and this concept of obedience that He uses throughout His Word will come alive and also bring to it the logic that He writes in His Word through how our parents tried to teach us in this manner.

A huge cry that is going out in the world today is to be unified and to be equal in all aspects of life.  This seems like a wonderful concept and God has even dealt on this subject many times in these articles as well.  While the common theme in the world resonates this subject, as each day passes we see the divide growing and deepening which raises our frustration levels exponentially.  This unsettledness is not limited to just this nation but can be witnessed all around the world, with the exact same results being produced. 

It is not difficult to reason why we are in a state such as we are, especially when the leaders of this nation have no intentions of cooperating with those who disagree with them all in the name of resistance.  This is a direct reflection of how we treat God as well and we all know that if our horizontal relations are not good there can be no way that the vertical relationship can be on good terms either.  This nation alone is in utter chaos because of its own reflections towards God and His Ways.  America was created to be the haven for all who wished to seek God freely and to live by His Word according to that foundation.  We have chosen that the benefits from God are too much to handle properly and those selfish guidelines of the world are more “righteous” than the Creator of the holy foundation. While God abhors this choice of ours and He shall allow us to live in its squander until a certain amount of time has passed and then “enough” is uttered from His mouth, to which we shall witness just how far we have ventured away from His mark.

It is for this reason alone that God has a specific order that He addresses issues in His Word and we see right from the beginning of His Word that obedience is a huge issue of safety, not control that is present.  In Genesis, we read that Adam and Eve had everything they needed and had no enemies to overpower them as long as they obeyed God’s one command.  It was not the fruit that was important, nor was it the tree itself either but it was the act of obedience that God was wanting from them.  We do not know what living a perfect and pure life is for it was the consequences of sin that has led us to the way we are and how we act today.  That pattern has not changed one bit since the day Adam and Eve chose to listen to disobedience instead of the truth.

Did Adam and Eve understand what exactly they did? Kind of, for once again they tried to take matters into their own hands by creating a covering themselves instead of figuring out that God would be the only One that could provide them with such a covering, and given the fact that they had just messed up the first covering over them, this process of theirs was now a finite solution which God recognized immediately.  God’s protection came as a sacrifice of an animal one of the last acts God did for Adam and Eve before they left the Garden of Eden, yet from the lack of response from their lips it can be easily interpreted that they still did not fully understand what God’s importance of covering meant, further defined by the acts of their sons sometime later.  It is this pattern of selfish and superficial sacrifices that led God to verbally reemphasize the truth that obedience is far greater in truth than the act of sacrifice.

In order for us to figure out the logical patterns of God, we must first acknowledge that the ways of mankind are far less than God’s and until we proclaim this truth we cannot understand His Truth.  When God initiates a process, He does so in such a perfect manner that we usually fail to recognize due to our own blindness and lack of knowledge concerning His order and wisdom.  God does not talk in circles He leads us on a straight path.  It is mankind who love to make circles and to make it where our lives seem to be less and less productive in moving forward and thus useless for any purpose.  Do not believe me?  Take a look at the last three generations of people that have been thrust into the world and look at their lives, both physically and spiritually.  Take a DEEP and hard look, set aside your personal acceptance and place them and their attitudes in God’s perspective of measuring up and then you will notice that a huge difference concerning unity is present.  It is God’s orderly process of obedience that if commanded will negate all confusion about who is the ruler and creator of our lives and thus bring us back into unified standards with our fellow mankind.

This brings us to Israel in the book of I Samuel and how they had progressed to the point where the act of sacrifice had become a ritual instead of an atonement process.  In 1 Samuel 15, God has had enough with the listless order of sacrifice because the people had made it a routine procedure instead of a personal and intimate repentance process through the needing and realization of the relationship stability with God.  Here is something to ponder on, what if God came to the same conclusion we do concerning His relationship with us if God was not 100% committed to the salvation of His prized creations all the time, what do you believe would occur in our lives?  It is this 100% commitment that He wants in return, that is all.  God understands that we cannot provide a perfect relationship with Him due to the sin and separation that lives within our lives; therefore, knowing this truth it is imperative that we do everything in our power to care enough about our relationship and eternal status with God to take a daily interest in this course and this can only be present through obedience.  Obedience comes from the heart which means it is personal and relevant to how the spirit operates.

The attitudes of Israel prompted the prophet to proclaim from God that He was sick of their religious practices because those practices had no meaning, both from their lives and to God.  These words should have been a direct message to the children of Israel concerning the condition of their hearts, but in reality, it turned out to be a slap on their cheeks by a white glove and considered an insult to them, which quickly leveled up to a revolt.  What is so intriguing about this setting is that Israel failed to recognize that the progression of their choosing an earthly king a bit earlier had already produced a further division between them and God, and only increased their ignorance that they were in the wrong in the first place.  One cannot argue against the fact that Israel had not truly progressed in the relationship with God more than what Adam and Eve had done long before their nation was established.  Adam and Eve did not understand this truth and neither did the children of Israel, but God was persistent and even after all of the trials, mistakes and blasphemous acts they committed before God, God once again made it very clear that obedience was more important than sacrifice.

There is nothing higher than obedience when a relationship is involved, no matter what the level of relationship may be.  In this case and in our case today, the relationship that God wants us to have with Him is a personal and intimate relationship one.  It is not some flimsy or intermittent communication of gratitude for that will produce a standard of stagnation instead of a calling for life itself.  God is not interested having your attention or semi attention on Sunday (Saturday) mornings and occasionally on a weeknight.  God does not care about that sacrificial process of personal time in order to do and to complete your duty as a person or child of God; in fact, these types of acts make Him sick and disgusted.  God is 100% committed to providing a process of salvation, redemption, and restoration for us and the only thing He asks in return is that we humbly and obediently return the truth of relationship with Him.

We must understand that obedience was the only condition that Adam and Eve had to adhere to during their tenure in the Garden of Eden, hey failed terribly at this fact.  Obedience was the driving force that God wanted the children of Israel to figure out and to keep in their hearts they too failed at this simple and lively task.  Today, the one main characteristic of relationship that many have trouble with and some flat out refuse to do is obedience.  We claim to obey no one but ourselves but in truth, we cannot even succeed at that claim because of the diabolical issues we subject ourselves to every day.

Obedience was the foundation to living out the dream setting that God placed Adam and then created Eve in, and as we shall read shortly disobedience was the procedure that the dream place and their dream was wiped away.  This means that obedience is one of the foundational aspects of restoration for if we do not have obedience to God and His Ways there is no way that we can be restored in His sight and reverts us back to the noncommittal sacrificial religious practices that mean absolutely nothing to God.

This nation is in direct disobedience to God and to His Ways and we advance this disgust and sickness of God each and every day.  It pains God in an eternal way to see His children deliberately sever the ties of spiritual communication and relationship with Him, all in the name of idolatry, freedom, and self-righteousness.  What is most frustrating to God in 1 Samuel 15 is that the people of Israel were so blinded to their condition that they had no clue why God was so upset at them.  I ask you, are we any different today then what the children of Israel were in this passage of Scripture?  The answer is obvious, but I can venture to say that everyone who does not attend church or study God’s Word AND a vast majority of those who sit in church every week has no clue as to the hurt and disappointment that we bring to His heart trough our disobedience.

The song “To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice” was written by Keith Green approximately four decades ago.  Keith received much criticism for this title and for the words of the song, but he repudiated these critical accusations and refused to back down from any portion of the song, and rightly so.  What Keith was writing about was the true and unadulterated Word of God and it was a specific message of warning to the children of Israel and it still is the same message for us today.  Obey is everything and it is even considered to be greater in the eyes of God for it represents the origin – disobedience – that sacrifice covers, a powerful statement that one cannot deny if a relationship is desired.  God always obeys His Laws and Word and He cannot deter from this truth by any means, for if He ever did our lives would be the subject of a cursing that is unimaginable, just as it will in the day of judgment if we do not turn our hearts back to God today.

God is calling for His Church to wake up and to walk uprightly before Him.  The only way that this is possible is if we obey God’s commands from Genesis to Revelation and live them as the middle portions of the Bible describe.  How importance is obedience to God?  Ask Adam and Eve, ask the children of Israel, ask any of the prophets, ask the congregations of the Early Church, ask any leader of today’s Church and most importantly ask yourself that question.  Take time to complete this simple question and answer session because it could save you an enormous amount of extended agony.

If Adam and Eve would have listened and obeyed in the Garden of Eden there would have been no reason for the act of sacrifice. Their disobedience cost them everything and if God allowed their loss to occur back then, He SHALL ALLOW IT TO OCCUR AGAIN TODAY.  We can skip this ugliness by choosing to obey God’s Ways again, it is a simple process and easily to begin but we must be committed 100% at all times for if we do not our houses may have been initially cleaned but recognized as not filled properly and then reoccupied by even greater disobedience.  This is the logic of obedience, do not disobey and relationship shall be much easier and protected on all levels of life.

DLB