Obeying Your Bridegroom

In our last Relationship Tuesdays, we looked at the aspect of love of God as Father through obedience, and how obedience to His commands is a recognition of His not only knowing but desiring what is best for us. 

Today we are going to look at demonstrating our love for God as our bridegroom or husband, which is another metaphor that God uses to describe His relationship with us throughout the Old and New Testament:

“For your Maker is your husband--the LORD Almighty is his name--the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.” Isaiah 54:5

“As a young man marries a maiden, so will your sons marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” Isaiah 62:5

“Then John's disciples came and asked him, "How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"

Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.” Matthew 9:14

And these are just a few examples.  The entire theme of the book of Hosea is God as bridegroom, and how upset/jealous He gets when His people go after idols.  And idols are not just dead images and statues that get set up and worshipped; idols are anything that takes any of your love away from God.  He wants you to love Him with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.  (Read more about this idea in Flee From Idolatry)

God basically equates anything less than loving Him with everything as adultery.

So if we are supposed to see ourselves as the wife of God, we need to look at how a wife ought to behave toward her husband:

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:22

Our role as the church/wife of Christ is one of submission.

Submission shows love because it’s not a forced obedience; submission is willful/selfless obedience.  Loving wives choose not to strive against their husbands and submit to their authority.  Loving people choose not to strive against God and submit to His authority, just as Jesus submitted to the Father when He said, “not my will, but yours be done." (Luke 22:42)  Wives choose to love their husbands not just more than they love other men but instead of loving other men.  Likewise God wants us to love Him not just more than all other options, but instead of all other options.  So we choose to trust and obey God, just as a wife chooses to trust and obey her husband.

Next time we’ll be looking at Obeying our King.

Obeying Our Father

In our last Relationship Tuesdays, we talked about how Jesus wants us to demonstrate our love for Him through Obeying God and came to the conclusion that you’re basically lying if you say, “I love Jesus” or “I love God”, but you’re not doing what He said to do.

Why does obedience mean so much to God?  I think if we look at the metaphors of how God sees our relationship, we can start to get a good idea of why obedience is so important.

Let’s start with the metaphor of Father:

One of the big ten commandments in the Bible is “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:12  Paul says that part of “honor” means obedience: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” Ephesians 6:1  

I wrote about this topic sometime back as it relates to our physical parents, namely that there are no qualifiers in this statement; scripture does not say honor and obey your parents unless   fill in the reason  .  It just says: honor and obey in the Lord, which means the only reason to withhold obedience is if it means sinning against God.  You can read more in the post titled: How to Honor Your Parents.

The point of the matter though is that God is our heavenly Father, and our earthly parents are just a reflection of Him.

Within that paradigm, consider that our parents have our best interest in mind when they are giving commands.  They may be misguided or selfish at times, but who of us isn’t. Ultimately, they really do want what’s best for us.  Likewise, God wants what’s best for us.  The difference is He’s never misguided.  He always knows what’s actually best.

Jesus puts it like this: “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:9-11

Scripture repeatedly tells that God’s commands are best for us:

This is what the LORD says--your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Isaiah 48:17

Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!  Deuteronomy 5:29

Walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess. Deuteronomy 5:33

Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, But happy is he who keeps the law. Proverbs 29:18

The list can go on and on.

Conversely, much like when we refuse to honor our earthly father and mother, when we refuse to honor and obey our heavenly Father, things will not go well for us. 

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am commanding you today. And the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today. Deuteronomy 11:26-28

And what’s the whole reason for this blessing and cursing from God when it comes to obedience?

When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Deuteronomy 30:1-3

The blessings and the cursings are all about restoring relationship with God, which is the whole point of this series: Relationship with God.  He rewards our obedience and disciplines our disobedience all in an effort to bring us closer to Him and by proxy what is good for us. 

What an amazing Father we have!  And when we obey Him, then we are in essence saying, "I love you, Daddy!  Thank you for watching out for me and helping me.  I couldn't make it without you."  So why wouldn't we obey Him?

Next week we’ll look at Obeying Our Bridegroom.

Obeying God

In our last Relationship Tuesdays we talked about God’s love, specifically God’s love for us inherent in the Gospel of Love.  About how He loved us so much to send His Son to die for us, not just so that we can avoid hell, but so that we can learn to love the way He loves: loving others and loving God. Love alone paves the way for a righteous life, as summed up in the big two commandments: Love the Lord your God, and love others like yourself.  And Jesus tells us that if we love Him we will obey His commandments.

For the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at the importance of obeying God in our relationship with Him.

I think a lot of times we get this mistaken idea of what obeying God’s commandments looks like.  We seem to think that if we go to church, pray, read our Bible, and maybe sing some songs that we’re walking in obedience, that we have a right relationship with God.  But there’s a lot more that Jesus tells us to do like feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for widows and orphans, heal the sick, to just name a few.  The Bible is chalk full of things God has commanded anyone who claims a relationship with Him to do for His glory.

One of my favorite illustrations of the misconception we have about obeying God comes from Francis Chan in the Basic series, but here’s a video that sums it up with a transcript from the series below:

When my daughter comes to me and I tell her, 'go clean your room,' she's not going to come back to me and say, 'dad, I memorized what you said to me. You said to go clean my room!' because I won't celebrate and say, 'yes! That's exactly what I wanted!' no. And she's not going to come say, 'dad, I can say go clean your room in Greek.' because that's not going to fly. And she's not going to say, 'my friends and I are going to gather every week and discuss what it would look like if I cleaned my room.' None of that works. Just go and clean your room.

So why do we think that kind of teaching is going to work when it comes to Jesus?

In John 14:15, Jesus says, “If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.”  And then in John 15:10, Jesus says, “If you keep my commandments, you’ll abide in my love.” 

Nowhere does He say go and learn my commandments, and that’s how I’ll know you love me. 

So for the next few weeks, we’ll look at why actual, physical obedience to God’s commandments is such an integral part of our relationship with Him, and why obedience demonstrates love.  We’ll start with Obeying Our Father.

Who Owns Your Stuff?

When I first came to Christ, all I really had to my name was a car, a laptop, and some clothes.  The clothes got too big because I didn’t have much money for food, and the laptop’s hard drive went out because it was old and cheap.  My car . . . well my car had its moments. 

I remember several times sitting in a parking lot turning the key again and again, my heart sinking as the engine puttered and wouldn’t start.  In those moments, I would pause and pray a simple prayer: “God, this is Your car, and all the money I have is Your money.  If You want to spend Your money fixing Your car, that’s fine with me.”

Then I would turn the key one more time, and amazingly the car would start right up and run just fine.

On the flip side of that coin, I really meant it when I said all the money I have is God’s, and I’ve never presumed to tell God what He ought to do with it.  A lot of times it really hurt to give.  One time He asked me to give all the money I had in my account to a missionary.  It meant I probably wouldn’t be eating for the rest of the month, but I did it.  The next day I got a check in the mail from someone I hadn’t talked to in years for the exact amount I had given the night before.

Even now, my family spends our money as God leads rather than by our own financial security, though we have a lot more than when I started this journey five years ago.  I still trust God implicitly to provide for our needs, and you can too.

Why?

It’s simple really: "Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it.”  (Deuteronomy 10:14) 

There’s nothing in this Earth that belongs to anyone but God.  There are good stewards, poor stewards, righteous stewards, and wicked stewards, but there is no such thing as private property in the kingdom of God.  It’s God’s property, every last bit of it.  From the smallest atom, to the grandest galaxy, everything is the Lord’s.

So, how do you think God would have you use His house that you live in, His car that you drive, His money you put in the bank and investments, His food you keep in the cupboards, His clothes you’ve hung in the closet, or His days that He’s appointed for your life? 

Before you answer that, I invite you to pray that He would lead you in your stewardship of His stuff, so He might have all the glory and honor. “For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)

The Name of Jesus

A few years ago, I had a long conversation with a friend who had fallen into a strange brand of “ministry” that was heavily focused on deliverance or as it’s more commonly known, exorcism.  The conversation had many treks and bunny trails, but through it all, God was speaking very clearly to me.  He would say, “this is what he’ll ask tomorrow, and this is the answer you will give him”, and then the man would ask the exact question, and I would have an answer. 

It was a sad experience because this “ministry” was having people invite demons into themselves and then supposedly exercising them, but everyone involved in it experienced a lot of problems afterward, and this friend and others refused to listen to the warnings God was giving them, not just through me but many others.

One of the questions that kept coming up was how could someone cast out a demon in the name of Jesus and not be a follower of Christ?  Or how can someone heal the sick in Jesus’ name and not be a follower of Christ?  Or do miracles in His name and not be a follower?

And yet Jesus says that this can and will happen: “Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me you who practice lawlessness.'” (Matthew 7:22-23)

At another point, the disciples come to Jesus and say, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us."

To which Jesus replies, "Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is for us.” (Mark 9:38-40)

But Jesus did not say, “Oh yeah, that’s George.  We go way back.  You’ll get to know him more in eternity.”

So how is that people who are not following Christ, and who Jesus says very bluntly are going to hell, can perform miracles, cast out demons, even prophesy? 

The answer is that they can do it because of the power in the name of Jesus Christ.  Jesus’ in Hebrew is Yeshua or Yahweh Saves.  Every time I say His name, I feel two things: intense love but also a little bit of awe.  I’m calling on the name of Almighty God, the God who created the universe with a word. 

The ones who Jesus will turn away in the end use His name to do amazing works, but refuse to love Him by obeying His commands (John 14:15)—what do you think lawlessness is?

Honestly it makes me a little ill not just when I see people invoking Jesus’ name to work miracles despite hating Him in their actions, but also when I hear people so casually cast around His name at dinner or bedtime prayers; it’s almost like they don’t know the One who they’re asking to bless their food at all. 

Honestly, I’ve been guilty of using His name without giving Him the honor He’s due as well, much to my shame.

Father forgive me, and help me to love Your name and Your Son’s name with reverent obedience.

Were Jesus’ Prayers Answered: Joy

Part 4 in a 5 Part Series

In this series we’re looking at Jesus’ prayer in John 17.  Did God answer that prayer? I think we can assume that He did.  It was Jesus praying after all.  When Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, He prays, “"Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me." (John 11:41-42) 

Likewise the prayer in John 17 is for our benefit, and its answer is for our benefit as well. We know this is so because Jesus says, “these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.” (John 17:13) 

Jesus prays this prayer that believers can be full of His joys, so why is it that we mope about all the time without any joy?  Was Jesus’ request that we be full of His joy denied?  I don’t think so.  I think what we need to ask is what does it take to be full of the joy of Christ?  The answer to that is found a couple of chapters earlier when Jesus says,

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.

These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. (John 15:1-11)

So, being full of Christ’s joy requires that you abide in Christ, that He abides in you, that you bear much fruit, that His words abide in you, that you abide in His love, and all of this comes by keeping His commandments.

In the simplest terms obedience shows love for Christ and loving Christ brings joy.  You’ll never meet someone more full of joy and obedience than someone who loves Jesus. 

You Were Born For This

Bruce Wilkinson, the author of the bestselling book The Prayer of Jabez, presents a follow up to that book all about miracles. 

When the publisher sent me the book and I first read the description, I braced myself for a super-charismatic-fire-from-heaven how-to book all about how to make God do crazy miraculous things in your life just by knowing the right spiritual buttons to push.  But I was pleasantly surprised, and somewhat relieved, to find that this is not what Wilkinson is encouraging in You Were Born For This.

In fact, the kinds of miracles Wilkinson talks about are rarely those signs-and-wonders spectacles that charismatics and conservatives get all worked up about one way or the other, though there are a few examples of healings.  Rather the book focuses on those amazing God-incidences (coincidences that God orchestrates).  Like when you’re in your hour of desperation because you can’t pay the bills this month, and a stranger shows up out of nowhere and hands you the exact amount you needed.  You’re left praising God and wondering about the mystery of it all.

I have certainly had a few of those experiences. 

What Wilkinson says in the book is that any one of us can be that stranger.  We can deliver a miracle to someone’s life if we’re just willing to be used by God and learn to listen to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.  You could be the one to hand a stranger money, you could be the one to offer encouragement when hope seems lost, you could be the one that introduces them to the love of Jesus Christ, etc.

Honestly, I was looking for things to dislike about this book.  I don’t like step-by-step guides to God and obeying God.  It’s all too self-helpish.  But this book doesn’t have one thing in it about seeking miracles to help yourself.  If you were to follow the directions exactly as he writes them, the worst you could do is be used by God to help someone in need.  I gave it a go while reading the book, and God did some amazing things.

Needless to say, I will be living differently after reading You Were Born For This.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to hear Jesus tell them, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” (Matthew 25:35-36)

Buy It Now $10.19

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review.  All opinions are my own.