“Obedience is obedience.  My attitude doesn’t matter as long as I obey Him,” is a common attitude found within professing Christendom.  Compulsory obedience is very common within the human race.  The fact of the matter is that such obedience places one on the same level as Satan who must obey God.  Recall that when God (the Word Who became Jesus Christ–Jn. 1:1-4,14) told him to “Be gone, Satan,” he had to leave (Mat. 4:10,11).  When God cast him out of heaven and onto earth, he had no choice but to obey (Rev. 12:9-12).  Though Satan hates God, he has to obey Him.

The reason most people obey speed limits is not because they want to, but because they must.  How many would drive 80 in a 60 if there wasn’t the threat of punishment?  In society today we are seeing more and more people breaking the law because of weak, or in some cases, no law enforcement.  People no longer FEAR the authorities.  Instead, they attack them.  There is not the fear of the legal system that once kept people in line.  The Law demands submission of the people who are subject to it.  But we are seeing the law losing out to anarchy due to man’s weak will relative to enforcing it.  This is due to the man on the street and the parent in the home lacking the will to demanding criminal accountability and obedience to them respectively.

Children act like little dictators in many families because the government prohibits any real discipline.  Which is exactly what God said would happen in the latter days as man grew farther and farther away from Him by rejecting the Law by which all human beings will be judged (Jn. 12:48).  In Isaiah 3:4 He warned Israel that, because of their rebellion against Him (His Law): “I will cause children to be their princes (preferred ones) and babes will rule over them.”  In verse 12 He warns: “Children will oppress  them and women will rule over them.”  Sound familiar?  Children are America’s darlings and women are running the U.S. Government as our president caters to their every whim.  And let us not forget, a woman is a heart-beat away from the presidency.  That same woman founded a go-fund-me campaign and bailed rioters out of jail with the warning that she was putting them back on the street SO THAT THEY COULD RETURN TO RIOTING, BURNING AND LOOTING.

As stated, man will often obey God but not out of a desire to do so.  Children are a prime example.  God commands that parents punish their children for disobedience as a means of establishing obedience as a habit.  Proverbs 22:15; 29:15,17 speak to this truth.  However, the rod of discipline commanded by God has been legislated into the crime category.  As stated in a previous posting, what was Biblically good in the past is now socially bad.  The looting and burning we recently witnessed in Democrat run cities proves that parents no longer take responsibility for their children.  Lawless children tend to become lawless adults, who produce lawless children ….  And the cycle continues generation after generation.  One can see where we are headed.

Disciplining of children, like enforcing the law, is designed to create an obedience that is the beginning point for the right kind of obedience–obedience to God.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  Good understanding have those who obey His commandments ….” (Ps. 111:10).  This kind of obedience is much more than just fear of punishment for breaking God’s Law (sinning–1 Jn. 3:4).  It is respect and reverence for the Lawmaker.  Proper fear leads to maturity and wisdom.  Obedience to God’s righteous Law (commandments) produces understanding, which reinforces respect for the Lawgiver.  Those who have traveled that road have found that the more one obeys God’s Law, the more one understands it and the more one comes to love it.  Having walked that walk, I can assure the reader that there is no joy like the joy that comes from obedience to God.  I know immediately when I have said something I should not have said, or had a thought that was not pleasing to the Lord.  His Holy Spirit in me lets me know in no uncertain terms.  I can actually feel it inside my chest and hear it in my head.  Let me assure the reader that the saying: “Unto whom much is given, much is required” is absolutely true.  I have been called to the highest calling relative to obedience to God.  One word, one thought, one act that is to any degree out of line with God’s command for holiness and I hear His “voice” telling me what I have done, said or thought.  God holds me accountable for doing, thinking and speaking things that the whole of professing Christendom would not consider wrong.  There is God’s concept of right and wrong, then there is the church version.  They are as different as light and darkness.  For those who have committed their lives to Him, God commands strict obedience to His Word.  With spiritual maturity comes the responsibility for self-correction based on God’s Word, which requires more and more Bible study with a mind-set to believe and obey what one reads.  The joy that comes from obedience to Him makes it all worthwhile.  Only those who answer His call for true Biblically-defined holiness will sit with Him on His throne in the Kingdom of God (1 Jn. 2:6; 3:3/ Rev. 3:21).

Obedience to authority involves more than obedience to the Lord.  In Ephesians 6:5,6 the Apostle Paul tells workers to obey their bosses, but not simply out of a sense of begrudging compliance.  He waxes specific in his (God’s) commands in this regard.  He commands that, relative to obedience to an overseer, we must obey: “Not when he is watching so as to please him, but as faithful servants of Christ, DOING THE WILL OF GOD FROM THE HEART.”  Here he compares obedience to one’s boss to obedience to Him.  In other words, we must obey our employer sincerely and wholeheartedly.  In several Scriptures God commands this kind of obedience to the authorities in our lives as a means of developing sincere obedience to God Himself as is stated in Romans 13:1-7.

Mere obedience to God doesn’t make one any better than the devil.  One’s attitude toward obedience is as important as obedience itself.  As Romans 6:17 tells us, God praises those who obey “from the heart.”  The Lord tells us in Deuteronomy 1:12: “And now, Israel (His church today), what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear Him, to walk (obey Him) in all His ways, to LOVE HIM and serve Him with all your heart (mind) and soul (body).   God requires loving obedience from loving servants.  He wants us to proclaim with King David: “O how I love your Law” (Ps. 119:97).  Beloved, love to keep His Holy Days, His weekly Sabbath, to tithe, to congregate with other saints, to think, speak and act in strict obedience to Him–to walk in total obedience to His Word/Law/Gospel/Light/Truth.  No other joy can come close to the joy that comes from obedience to God.  I can tell you from experience that the joy that comes from being involved in the Institutional Church is false joy provided by Satan.  He gives false joy, peace, contentment, etc. to those who obey him.  The only way to know the difference is through Bible study in which we show ourselves” approved of God” (2 Tim. 2:15).    L.J.