Obedience
By Timothy Glover
Obedience is a term that has negative connotations today. Yet in every generation, God expects his subjects to obey him.
While Noah did “according to all that God commanded him” (Gn. 6:22) and was saved from the flood, King Saul offers an example of disobedience and its results. Yahweh delights in us obeying his voice (1 Sam. 15:22,23) and because Saul had rejected his word, he “rejected him from being king.”
What about us? Is it no longer necessary to be obedient? Matthew 7:21 reads, “Not everyone that says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven.” See also Heb. 5:9, Js. 2:17-24, Rom. 6:16,17 & Rev. 22:14.
A story of a man who gave implicit instructions to his sons illustrates the importance of obedience. After buying land and financing the development, he gave his sons the plans for building a house, guest house, and barn before leaving on a trip. When he finally returned, he noticed they built the barn in the wrong place. When he inquired, they responded, “It would have distracted from the house.” Seeing his disapproval, the sons explained, “This is the only change we made. We obeyed everything else!” The father said, “You just agreed with me on everything else. If you had disagreed with the others, you would have likely changed that, too. You did not obey me!”
Saul also claimed that he had obeyed but he saved Agag and some sacrificial animals because it seemed better to him. We may do many things right in religion but are we agreeing or obeying God when doing them?
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