Obedient

We show that we love Jesus in many ways, but one of the main ways we show our love for Him is by our obedience to Him.   Obedience can be a very hard thing to activate in our lives, daily.  When we are obedient we are in complete surrender of our own wants, needs, and doing what we have been told to do.  We are doing these things in spite of how we feel or what we personally desire.  We are putting the commands of God before our own desires. 

We are obedient to Jesus when we demonstrate obedience.   We are in fact aligning our lives up with his will, when we listen to his words, and plans over our own.   This can be a very painful thing to do, especially, when you have a flesh that isn’t used to being obedient to anything but its own fleshly desires.  

I have dogs, and tonight, I was eating a bowl of cereal for dinner, and a couple of the cheerios fell out of the bowl.  I had gathered up about five cheerios and had them sitting beside me.  I thought to myself, I wonder which one of these dogs are going to snatch them first.  I was in my own way looking to see which one was going to be obedient to my training.  One of my dogs came up beside me and just sat there staring at the cheerios, then at me, then back to the cheerios.   Now, just for a little back ground story, this dog runs the house.  She is the baby and incredibly spoiled, and knows it.   She gets everything she wants, and knows that too.   I was incredibly surprised that she hadn’t pounced on the cheerios yet, and gobbled them up.  She just sat there as sweet as can be and waited for me to motion for her to eat them.   I tested her by petting her and moving them around a bit and still she didn’t eat them.  Finally, after a couple minutes, which I am sure to her, felt like hours, I said, you may have them, and she gobbled them down.  

This was her way of showing obedience to me, her owner.  She was being obedient to the things I have taught her, and was showing me her good behavior, and by doing so, I rewarded her with a treat.   

This is a small example of how Jesus is with us.  Jesus will ask us to be obedient to him over small things.  Small things can consist of everything from picking up after yourself, to making sure you place things on the shelves correctly after you pick them up.  There are small nudges we get internally and Jesus waits to see if we are going to listen the nudges, or just follow our own fleshly desires.   

For many years I followed my own fleshly desires.  For many years I did what made me feel good and really wasn’t worried about the consequences of my behavior.  Now, I wasn’t a terribly bad kid but I wasn’t really thinking about my future or how my decisions in my twenties were going to impact my thirties, forties or even into my sixties.  I was living in the moment, and doing what feels good.   I also believe I have paid for those poor fleshly desires later in life.  

Living in the moments of life isn’t always the best way to conduct yourself.   It feels good in the moment, but what about the moments after that?  What about, when you have to explain to your older self why you are still living in the moment, twenty years later.  I think just like everything else there is a balance to life.  We are to be balanced with our behavior, and that includes living carelessly and cautiously at the same time.  I have yet to master this one, but I keep on trying.

I have been told recently, by someone who lives a very different life than mine that I am too uptight and I need to learn to loosen up and live in the moment.  Now, this sounds great in theory, but to actually execute, is another thing.   I will also tell you that the person, who told me that I need to loosen up, is very out of balance with his living in the moment philosophy.  He lives for each moment and then runs from the trouble he finds himself in.  His living in the moment mantra has helped bring him to a life of addiction, that he is unsure how to change or accept.  

I admired his free for all behavior and wished that I could be free like he was, but without the addiction issues.  I appreciated that he lives in each moment, as I live five to fifteen minutes in the future.   Just as his life is out of balance, so is mine.   My life might not have led me into addiction but it has led me into hiding my feelings.   I guess if you could combine the two of us we would make a pretty good person.  Maybe that’s why God brought us to each other, but that’s for another day.  

If I would completely listen to my inner man and he would listen more to his inner man, we probably would be brought into balance by being obedient to where we are being led.   Since we both decide to live out of our flesh at times, it enters us into being out of balance, and trust me there are ramifications to pay for that.  

Jesus wouldn’t ask us to be disciplined if it was something we weren’t capable of being, or if it was going to be something that was harmful for us.    Jesus only wants to add to our lives, never to subtract from our lives.  When Jesus asks you to do something he is asking you to do it because, he knows what is good for us.  Jesus, can see what is good for us right now, what’s good for us tomorrow and what’s good for us ten years from now.  He can look at the broad picture and say, maybe you should go this way instead of that way, because I see this happening for you down the road.   We don’t understand in the moment why we are being led down a certain direction, but if we are disciplined to Jesus, we will never be steered in the wrong direction.  

I know my desire is to please God.  I know that every day I live I want to be a better person than the day before, and I truly know that the only way I will be able to accomplish that is by following Jesus, and the plans he has for me.  I need to be disciplined not only because this shows Jesus that I love him and trust him, but because I know that Jesus loves me.   If you believe in your heart that Jesus is for you, and that He only wants the best for your life, than listening to Him and obeying Him should be a little easier.   

I am not saying it’s going to be easy but I am saying it should be easier.  Your flesh is still going to fight you every step of the way, until you show your flesh who is the ruler over both of you.  Until you get your flesh to fall in line with your desires, which now have become Jesus’s desires, you will feel pain.   

Some days it might be a little ouch of pain and other days it might feel like you are being turned inside out.  Know that everyone feels those pains when they are dying to their own desires.  You are not alone in this feeling, as I am feeling them too, daily.   Keep in mind though, that the final outcome, is living the life that Jesus not only died for you to have, but knows is the best life for you to live. 

We can be obedient to our flesh or we can be obedient to Jesus.  I am personally choosing to be obedient to Jesus.  I know that not only will I live the life he has planned for me but I also know that he will see the love I have for Him on the inside with my every act of obedience.