Complete Obedience
Someone has said that obedience is doing what you’re told, when you’re told to do it with the right heart attitude. This would agree with the Bible’s description of believers being soldiers of Jesus Christ. Paul said to Timothy, “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:4). We are engaged in warfare. The battle between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God is very real. We as citizens of God’s kingdom are to “fight the good fight of faith.”
Partial obedience is disobedience. And a lack of thorough obedience leaves the people of God vulnerable to spiritual demise. When God brought His people into the promised land He gave them land to posses. His instructions were very clear: Drive out the enemies of God and tear down the altars they had built to their false gods. In the book of Judges we read that six of the twelve tribes did not obey God’s commands. We read in Judges 1:21-33 that these tribes “did not drive out” the inhabitants of the land as the Lord had told them to. Even though they had possessed the land they were incomplete in their obedience and that opened a door to their spiritual demise. The Angel of the LORD appeared to them with a divine rebuke.
Then the Angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this? Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they shall be thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a snare to you.’” Judges 2:1-3
Just as the Angel of the LORD said these pagan nations Israel did not drive out became thorns in their side and a snare to them. The rest of the history of Israel in Judges is a record of their spiritual inconsistency. In Judges 2:11 we read, “Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.” This is repeated over and over again throughout the book. Israel would regret their incomplete obedience before God throughout their history.
And so it is with us. We may think that doing “most” of what the Lord tells us is enough. But the Lord wants total obedience. It is time for the church of Jesus Christ to awaken out of our spiritual sleep and see that our incomplete obedience and our inconsistent Christian living is putting us in deep spiritual danger. The solution to this spiritual malaise is simple. Obey God completely. Anything less is nothing more than disobedience. Let us purpose now to do all the Lord commands us to do and follow Christ fully. Complete obedience and whole hearted allegiance to Christ opens the door to intimacy with Him and the privilege of receiving from Him the true riches of His kingdom.
Pastor Dan