Obedience Sucks, or does it?

Obedience sucks, or does it?

In looking through the gospels one of the things that stands out to me a lot recently is that of Jesus' loving obedience. Time and again it is emphasised, especially in John's gospel, that Jesus obeys because of love.

I think our modern association of the word 'obedience' is quite negative. Well, it is for me anyway. I associate the word with oppression, dictatorship, pressure and expectation. The other aspect of obedience is that of duty. Often obedience can be seen as a form of duty which, in itself, is perceived as a highly moral justification for doing something. Duty carries with it the expectation of conformity or obedience regardless of personal desires or will. This is a strong aspect of some cultures today and even in previous generations in our (UK) culture.

Obedience and duty were certainly part of Jesus' Jewish heritage. Family duty and responsibility were highly regarded, so, perhaps Jesus did what he did out of a sense of moral duty?

However, it is clear from the text that this was not the case. Jesus made it clear that he was not living the life he lived out of a sense of duty and legalistic obedience, he wanted us to know the reason why he was doing what he did:

he did what he did because he loved the Father, so much so that he did exactly what the Father commanded him (John 14:31).

This approach to living a Christian life is a challenging one. Jesus made it clear that he denied his own will for the sake of his Father's will when facing the impending journey to the cross (Luke 22v41-42). Letting go of our own will goes against the drive in our own culture of self promotion, self-esteem, self-worth, self-efficacy, self driven independence. Gain more, have more, achieve more. The sound of our self will becomes more about 'my will, not yours be done', which can become both consciously and unconsciously part of our faith. This is because we have just adopted this mentality from our surrounding culture and find a way for it to fit into an expression of our faith.

What we can end up doing is living a life of faith which tries to bend or twist God's perceived will to our own. We look for verses which support our view and ignore others, we can assume God's will or intent in a situation or we believe 'by faith' something which God has not actually shown, taught or revealed. We believe by what we think is faith, when it is actually religious wishful thinking.

So what next? With Jesus' example of loving obedience what does this mean for us in how we live our faith? Firstly, ideally, as much of what we can needs to come from God and not ourselves or social pressure/expectations. Secondly, it also focuses our attention on what is most important: knowing and living in God's love. It is from this that an obedient Christian life needs to flow and therefore, living obediently would be an overflow of a loving relationship and not simply a matter of following rules which you feel duty bound to have to fulfil.

Therefore, Christian obedient living is meant and intended to be out of a loving relationship, so our priority as Christians is to dig deeper into that relationship with God through his word, prayer and worship, seeking to grow in and through him. Does obedience suck? Not in the way Jesus lived it.