The Pain of Obedience

     As I was driving in to work this morning I was thinking about the statements Jesus made that he would never leave us or forsake us and his claim in John 10 that we are his sheep and no one can pluck us out of his hand.   I was meditating on his love for us and, as my mind often does, it began to wonder down  a different road of thought.  “Does God really love me if I continue to sin?”  “What if I am unwilling or unable to overcome this or that sin in my life—am I still saved?”  “Or have I been plucked out of his hand?”  “Or maybe I wasn’t ever in his hand to start?”  I’ll be honest, and maybe it’s just that I am a wimp, but those questions are too big for me.  I know that faith in the Lord Jesus saves us and I know that the power of the Holy Spirit transforms us.  I know that his love for us motivates us to love him in obedience and there are so many verses in the Bible that equate our love with our obedience.  You just can’t get away from it.  If you say you love God but there are major flaws and holes in your obedience, something is wrong. 

     As I continued to allow my mind to chase the thoughts that were coming to me, I asked myself, “Why do so many believers have such a hard time obeying?”  The answer flooded my mind like a tsunami.  It’s because obedience hurts.  It’s often very painful to obey the Lord.  We have to relinquish our goals and aspirations.  Sometimes we use sinful things to medicate our pain and to give up the sin means allowing the pain to come back.  So many folks addicted to alcohol, drugs, porn or food are doing so because it helps alleviate their hurts.

    Immediately on the heels of that conclusion, God seemed to bring to mind a verse from Philippians.  In chapter three, verse ten Paul says that his greatest desire is to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection and the “fellowship of his sufferings.”  So often we want the power of Jesus’ resurrection in our lives but we don’t want to know any of the suffering that comes by our obedience.  Jesus suffered because of his obedience.  He suffered emotionally.  He suffered physically.  I think he may have suffered spiritually as His Father turned his back on him while he paid for our sin.

     I wonder this morning, how much am I willing to suffer to be found obedient to God?  How much are you willing to suffer?    Do you think I might be right?  Could it be we have such a hard time obeying because we are so unwilling to suffer for God?  Yet the Bible says that Jesus suffered greatly for us--- shouldn’t our love motivate us to suffer the pain of obedience?

    I hesitate to share this story since I no longer live in it’s reality but I want to.  Years ago I had an experience with the Lord where he confronted me with my sin of gluttony.  He asked me if I loved him more than food and I knew I did.  I remember him so clearly asking me, “Then are you willing to be hungry for my sake?”  At that moment, at that time, I knew that I was and for the next three years I ate so as to honor him even though I often felt the discomfort of wanting to eat but not doing it.

    Beloved, obedience isn’t an option for us, but with it often comes suffering and pain.  My hope and prayer is that God might stir us up and we might say with Paul, “I want to know the fellowship of his sufferings!”  Are you willing to obey even if you must suffer?  Are you willing to love Jesus even though loving Him may be painful to do so?  

    Why not take a minute to recognize the pain that is involved in surrendering yourself to obey the Lord.   What is God calling you to do that if you obey you will hurt?  What sin is their in your life that if you stop doing it, the result will be pain?  Then answer the question, do you love Jesus enough to go through the suffering?  He loved you enough.

Thoughts from the March of Life 2009

    We haven’t been home long from the March for Life but I wanted to write my thoughts down while they were fresh on my heart.  For over fifteen years myself and others have made the yearly trip to Washington to observe the remembrance of the Supreme Court decision making abortion the law of the land.  Since that time it is estimated that thirty-eight million, five hundred thousand children growing in their mother’s wombs have been killed and aborted.

      There are always banners and homemade signs that range in size, color and content.  But the one that always arrests my attention  quotes the start of the Declaration of Independence.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  All men have been given by God the right to life!  That is what it says.  It’s funny but the same supreme court that ruled that children in the womb don’t have an inalienable  right to live also ruled that black people also did not have rights to life and liberty.  We all agree today that they got it wrong back then and I tell you they have it wrong today!  God has given children, even while in their mother’s womb, the right to life and liberty and pursuit of happiness.

    Psalm 139:13-16 says, “Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb.  I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!  Body and soul, I am marvelously made!  I worship in adoration—what a creation!  You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.  Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day."

    The Bible is clear that children in the womb are God’s creation and have a right to live.  They are important to him and they should matter to us.  Proverbs 24:11-12 commands us, “Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.  If you say, "But we knew nothing about this, does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?  Does not he who guards your life know it?  Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?”   We know it beloved!  We can not stand by and do nothing. 

    What can we do to light our world and shine for life in ‘09?   First and most certainly foremost, we should pray.  Pray for the hearts of Americans to change.  Today there are very, very few that believe people of color should not have the same rights as white people.  Pray that God would help Americans see that unborn children have the right to live.  Pray for our president.  President Obama is the most pro-abortion president we’ve had in years.  He believes that children who are born alive should not be given medical help but left to die unless their parents desire it.  He affirms partial birth abortion as a viable method of abortion.  This very afternoon he said we will no longer torture our enemies– a move I very much agree with– because we will fight the war on terror but do so holding to our core values.  Pray that he might see that life, the life of America’s unborn, should be a core value.  Pray!

    Speak up for the truth of Life.  Don’t be ashamed to challenge your friends and coworkers with the horrific truth of abortion.  Don’t be argumentative or condescending but be firm and specific.  Use the many tools available to you from videos to pamphlets.  We must speak up.

    Write letters to your congressmen.  It is projected that this year congress will vote on the Freedom of Choice Act.  It will codify Roe v. Wade and truly make it the law of the land.  States rights to regulate abortion in anyway will be done away with.  State laws requiring even such basic things as parental notification will be overturned.  President Obama has promised to sign it if it comes across his desk.  Write Senators Webb and Warner, Congressmen Forbes and Scott,  and ask them to please vote against it.  The worst thing we can do, is do nothing.

    Join us next January on the March for Life.  This year the crowd seemed smaller than in past years.  I know everyone is tired, and I don’t know that we accomplish very much if anything, but we must speak up.

    “God, thank you for giving us life.  Help us to be defenders of this very precious gift.  Use us to stand for righteousness.  In Jesus name we ask, amen”