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Obedience and the Beginning of Love

You ask me about obedience, and as soon as you do, it feels like a cord around your neck. You feel the push and pull of wanting to do things differently than how I lead you to do them. You feel the tension. You think you have a desire to please Me, but this is what you forget: obedience is  not the act of following a rule just so you can be rewarded with a good conscience. Obedience is not for feeling good about yourself, serving a duty, adding a task to a list of good deeds. 

Obedience aligns your heart with Mine because obedience is an act of love, a product of My relationship with you. What I encourage you to do—love Me with your whole heart; love others as much as you love yourself, walk humbly with Me; serve Me—is only possible because I have loved you first. I have sent my Son and He gave His life for you. And it is His life that paid the ransom for your life. For you were separate from Me, and I rescued you. You were dead, and I brought you to life. You were lost, and I redeemed you. I loved you, and I called you Mine. 

And because you are Mine, I am yours. And because I am yours, you are Mine. So obedience is not an act of servitude, it is a response to love. And what I guide you toward in this life—what I give you a choice about, is less about obeying and more about opportunities to say yes to Me, say yes to love, or not.

There is no life without love. There is no point to getting through a day, no mission greater, no task better, than loving Me with your whole heart, your whole mind, your whole strength, your whole soul. There is no “part-way” here. There is no loving Me partially. Obedience is an act of love, a response to My love. You either love Me or you don’t. You either obey Me or you don’t.

I do not cast you away when you don’t love Me. But my heart breaks.

I do not stop loving you when you don’t love Me. But my heart longs for you.

I do not alter my affections for you. I do not stop pursuing you. I do not pull away from you or give up on you. I am love, and I cannot stop loving you. I am love, and there is nothing else I can do but love you. And love means discipline. And love means letting you choose. And love means letting you fall. And love means picking you up. 

Obedience is the act of connecting with My love, the death to the part of you that is prone to separate from Me, and the rebirth of the soul. For you are made to be aligned with Me. There is no other peace, no other joy, no other hope, no other love.

I am your love. You are My love. Let us begin, and begin again, focusing on that. 

Exercise:

Confession—real, raw confession—confession that stings—it’s a critical component of a healthy spiritual life. It’s also an essential element of robust Christian community. We may not like it; we may not want to admit it, but we all need to be known, truly known—and to be accepted by our friends and family still.

The culture of the world tells us, though, that to be accepted we must project images that are only partially accurate. And that seems right, at first. But it’s not. It’s a lie from our enemy. Because, as long as we conceal parts of our lives, we cannot know the true depth of our friendships. As long as we hide, community is never tested. As long as we hide, we harbor doubts: would they stand by me if they knew the real me? This leads to shame, and we forsake the wonderful gift of compassion from true Christian community. King Solomon wrote in the book of Proverbs, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”

Moreover, if our friends and family see us only partially, they cannot fight for us—because we obscure from them what’s going wrong. But something has, and something will. Because here’s the thing: we’ve all “sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The Apostle Paul wrote that in the third chapter of Romans. So when we fall short—not if we fall short, but when we fall short—we need others to see . . . so they can step in—to help and to pray.

James the brother of Jesus encouraged us to “confess your sins to one another . . . pray for one another, that you may be healed.” Why? “The prayer of a righteous person has great power,” he tells us. You see, when we confess—when we let other people into our lives—and when we and they pray together, things change. We are able to move into the new life that Jesus offers us in His love. We are able to move into peace and freedom.

Do you want that? Do you want to be free of shame and self-contempt? If you do, let’s start by figuring out two things: what to confess and to whom.

What is easy: it’s whatever you haven’t confessed already. There shouldn’t be anything in your life that someone doesn’t know. So let’s allow Him to show us the way to peace and freedom.

Jesus, what in my life, in my past, would be good for me to confess?

Now, let’s ask Jesus the second question.

Jesus, who should I confess this thing, or this pattern of behavior, to?

Jesus has put people into your life specifically for this type of transparency. He hasn’t forgotten you. He never does. So, based upon what you heard in prayer today, I encourage you to reach out to that person and to have a conversation. Maybe send them a text or an email right now, and set up a time to meet for breakfast or coffee. This is hard, I know, but the peace and freedom that await on the other side are absolutely worth it.