Skip to main content

Pulled, not pushed

So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.” (I Peter 1:13-16)

Many of us think of obedience as some sort of subservient submissiveness to the will of another without any ability on our part to do something otherwise. God's definition of obedience - the stuff within us that has no ability to do anything other than be obedient to his will for our lives. We know this is not the case for most of us - we struggle with obedience, don't we? We don't just get up one morning, determined to be obedient and then never turn back. In fact, truth be told, we find ourselves looking back a little too frequently! There is a call for us to be engaged. "Rolling up one's sleeves" really is a call to get into the task at hand. I actually like to wash dishes - there is something kind of therapeutic for me in this activity. The warm, sudsy water soothes my hands and I like seeing things go from soiled to clean. When wearing long sleeves, I have to push them up, out of the way, so I may plunge my hands deeply into the warm water. We are called to "go all in" with Jesus. It is not a half-way commitment - it is all or nothing. The task ahead is often governed by our response to the task. When we are willing to engage in the process, no matter how long or hard it may appear, we will see the rewards based on our level of engagement. If we are half-way committed to this life with Christ, our struggles with life-dominating sins, breaking free from legalism, and the issues that have us bound will continue to be issues.

This is not an unthinking action. God tells us our mind has to "be in gear", we have to be present in the moment. Obedience is not a casual thing - it requires attentive consideration of choices, mindfulness toward making the right ones, and then the determination to continue making them even when it is hard to do it! Like I said, obedience is not the easiest of character traits to possess, but it "pays off" phenomenally! The place of obedience is only held when there is an awareness of how easily it can slip away. I am as guilty as the next person of having this project and that just sits in some sort of "unfinished" state. It may be a sewing project, a little repair job needing to be done around the house, or even the writing of the next installment of this blog. Regardless, it is easy to "put things off" when they just aren't all that exciting at the moment. Obedience requires the determination to not put off till tomorrow what needs our attention today. When we aren't attentive today, it will become easier and easier to allow our attentiveness to drift with each tomorrow!

There is a learning which occurs as we take steps forward. The first step in the right direction is sometimes the most difficult, but with each step comes an element of trust, learning how it is we move forward. Between the first step and the last one there are a whole lot of subsequent steps. It is kind of like crossing a stream by carefully selecting each stone upon which we shall step next. We might just learn the wet ones don't make the best stepping spots! We might learn the wobbly ones give way to our weight! We might also learn there are a whole lot of paths but only one which really gets us to the other side dry! As we put one foot in front of the other, we find it gets easier, because we are learning from the past "missed steps". Obedience is often riddled with some "missed steps". We think it is the correct step for us to take, but we come to discover it was maybe not the "best". The truth is - God redeems our "missed steps" and helps us put our next foot forward! There is a "pull" toward obedience. At first, it seems like a life-challenge which will just not let us catch a break. Each and every step seems hard. I don't know where it really happens, but somewhere along the way of taking the hard steps, the steps get easier. It is like we have someone propelling us forward. I think this is God's Spirit, backing us up all along the way. As we step forward, he nudges us a little further, until it is like a force pulling us into the place of perfect obedience. 

Obedience is incremental, at best. We think we are "all in", but truth be told, we are only as "all in" as we are aware of being "in" right now. We don't know the full story when we take the first step toward obedience, but it is in the steps we discover the story unfolding for us. Each incremental step leads to another and another. It is line upon line, precept upon precept. To think otherwise is to delude oneself. We get down on ourselves when we see the frequency of our missed steps, but God just sees our willingness to take the next step. He urges us on, pulling us toward the place of obedience. In time, it becomes "second-nature" to us, but until then, let him keep pulling! Just sayin!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What did obedience cost Mary and Joseph?

As we have looked at the birth of Christ, we have considered the fact he was born of a virgin, with an earthly father so willing to honor God with his life that he married a woman who was already pregnant.  In that day and time, a very taboo thing.  We also saw how the mother of Christ was chosen by God and given the dramatic news that she would carry the Son of God.  Imagine her awe, but also see her tremendous amount of fear as she would have received this announcement, knowing all she knew about the time in which she lived about how a woman out of wedlock showing up pregnant would be treated.  We also explored the lowly birth of Jesus in a stable of sorts, surrounded by animals, visited by shepherds, and then honored by magi from afar.  The announcement of his birth was by angels - start to finish.  Mary heard from an angel (a messenger from God), while Joseph was set at ease by a messenger from God on another occasion - assuring him the thing he was about to do in marrying Mary wa

A brilliant display indeed

Love from the center of who you are ; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply ; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. (Romans 12:9-12) Integrity and Intensity don't seem to fit together all that well, but they are uniquely interwoven traits which actually complement each other. "Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it." God asks for us to have some intensity (fervor) in how we love (from the center of who we are), but he also expects us to have integrity in our love as he asks us to be real in our love (don't fake it). They are indeed integral to each other. At first, we may only think of integrity as honesty - some adherence to a moral code within. I believe there is a little more to integrity than meets the eye. In the most literal sense,

Do me a favor

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Philippians 2:1-4) Has God's love made ANY difference in your life? What is that difference? Most of us will likely say that our lives were changed for the good, while others will say there was a dramatic change. Some left behind lifestyles marked by all manner of outward sin - like drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, or even thievery. There are many that will admit the things they left behind were just a bit subtler - what we can call inward sin - things like jealousy,