At the beginning of this year I told the Lord, ”Lord, I really want to honour You by being obedient.” Within the first 2 days I realised that it’s easy to obey God when you have an expected, anticipated outcome, but when you face things that you can’t control and can’t explain, when things don’t happen quite the way you anticipated, that’s where the challenge comes in.
What does the word OBEDIENCE mean? According to the HELPS Word Study, the meaning of obedience is a multi-faceted concept that goes beyond simple compliance. The key aspects of the meaning of obedience include:
”To Hear” and ”To listen” Attentively: The Hebrew word for obedience, shama, and the Latin root obedire both mean ”to hear” and ”to listen”. This implies that true obedience begins with a receptive heart and a willingness to listen closely to God’s instructions and guidance.
Trust and Faith in Action: Obedience is an active expression of faith and trust in God’s wisdom and goodness. It involves trusting that God knows what is best, even when the path is unclear or requires personal sacrifice, and then acting on that trust.
A response of Love: A primary motivation for obedience is love for God as expressed in John 14:15, ”If you love me, keep my commands.” Obedience is not a burdensome legalism, but a natural, joyful response to the love and grace one has received from God.
Submission and surrender: Obedience involves aligning one’s own will with God’s will and surrendering to His supreme authority. This often means a ”dying to oneself” and placing God first in one’s life, as Jesus exemplified through His own life of obedience to the Father.
Imitating Christ: Jesus is the ultimate example of obedience, who learned obedience through suffering and perfectly carried out the Father’s will, even to death on the cross. Christian obedience is to become like Jesus, patterning one’s life on His example of love and service to others.
Not merely Rules, but a relationship: The study emphasizes that obedience is not about merely following a list of rules, but about fostering a deep, personal relationship and communion with God.
Obedience thus has two parts, first a hearing and then a doing part. The challenge in the first part is to hear God’s voice. Sometimes the world around us is so noisy that we find it difficult to hear the voice of our Heavenly Father. Jesus had a rhythm where He would spend time alone with His Father. We should have that same rhythm too. ”Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10) was written for a reason. More of a challenge, for me, is to discern between God’s voice and the voice of my own soul. Is it really His heart that I am hearing? The challenge in the second part is to submit my will to God’s. Sometimes I am reluctant to act on the voice I’ve heard and start to reason that it could have been the voice of my own soul. So maybe I do not have to obey.
Obedience is rooted in love. Bill Johnson wrote the following about obedience in his book, The Resting Place. – The unimaginable privilege of carrying His presence should never reduce me to a labourer for God. While it is one of my highest privileges to serve Him completely, my labour is the byproduct of my love. In John 15:15 Jesus says, ”No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My father I have made known to you.” They were given access to the secrets in the heart of God. When Jesus gave His disciples this promotion, He did so by describing the difference between the two positions. Servants don’t know what their master is doing. They don’t have access to the personal, intimate realm of their master. They are task-orientated. Obedience is their primary focus – and rightly so, for their lives depend on success in that area. But friends have a different focus. It almost sounds blasphemous to say that obedience is not the top concern for the friend, but it is true. Obedience will always be important as John 15:15 highlights. But friends are less concerned about disobeying than they are about disappointing. The disciples’ focus shifted from the commandments to the presence, from the assignment to the relationship, from ”what I do for Him” to ”how my choices affect Him.” (Bill Johnson, The Resting Place)
Obedience also means … I shall not worry, fear, be anxious or doubt, but I shall choose to have faith, trust in the Lord and eat Paul’s sandwich in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 – ”I shall rejoice always, pray without ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances.”
I want to challenge you this year to be obedient and to personalize Scripture. Put your Name in every applicable verse and live out the will of your Heavenly Father.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for giving us the ultimate example of obedience. O Lord, help me to glorify Your Name in every thought, word and deed. Help me to represent You well. In Jesus Name. Amen.
Angelique van der Westhuizen