I have recently (as in the past 6 months) been chewing on a concept. It has taken repeated exposures and considerable meditation to get to any of the words I will write here. There is much more to be said. much more to be experienced. which is really the point of all of this.
We are in a war. Every person is included here, but we may not be fighting under the same leadership. Anyway, this will be directed to Christians. We are in a war. In the most base words as possible, what do we fight for in our daily walk?
I do not want to make my experience to seem as if it belongs to every man, so I readily recognize that my false perceptions may be different from someone else's false perceptions. Nevertheless, let's recognize falsity and trade it in for truth.
After some thought, I have decided that I have thus far lived the majority of my Christian walk fighting for obedience. I have been fighting to do the right thing. Now to some, that may sound admirable. My friend, I believe the same lie has tripped us. Now I am certainly not robbing obedience of it's place in Christianity. (There are 10 commandments, for crying out loud, just for starters.) I am simply going to remove obedience from the center of my relationship with Christ.
First, I will explain how I believe obedience became my main goal. Then I will suggest an alternative, which is really more than an alternative. It's biblical, so by alternative I mean "you should live this way."
I grew up in a conservative church/ school setting. I thank God for allowing me to grow up in this environment because it has been a blessing I still do not fully comprehend. However, I did gain some misconceptions there. (I take responsibility for these misconceptions. All teaching I receive may not be accurate, but I am not without a Source of ultimate truth.) Obedience was a big deal at this institution. I still remember looking at detention slips (not mine, mind you) that had the box checked for "direct disobedience." Obedience to God's Word was a high priority as well. One lesson that I gained from my experience there was "even if you don't feel like it, do it anyway because it's right." And this IS a good lesson to learn. Sometimes we don't want to do right, but we need to anyway simply by its virtue of being right. However, this lesson transferred over to my relationship with Christ in the following ways:
Even when I don't want to, read the Bible every day.
Even when I would rather sleep, go to church.
Even when I'm not interested, get involved in Christian groups.
etc...
I agree that there will be times when we won't desire these things, but we should in most cases do it anyway. To put in plainly, these instances should be the exception. But after hearing this lesson so many times, these became the rule, and obedience became the focus. Desire was not the main issue because that will come and go. But we can control obedience. We should fight to act not to feel.
Scripture says otherwise.
Hebrews 12:2
Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross...
Joy.
He endured for the joy. Not the sense of duty. Not the need to obey. For the joy.
Joy is the focus.
If Christ endured for the joy of relationship with God, how can I expect to survive by any other method?
Looking at that verse, can I really convince myself that a list to daily fulfill will carry me through a faithful Christian walk? No, not at all. Obedience is not going to be enough. It has got to be joy.
In some ways, this is incredibly freeing. Imagine a soldier at war. His general says to him, "Soldier, nevermind that list you have in your hand. You will lose your fight by following that. What I want you to do is to know me as your leader and take great joy in my power. You will win if you do this." What a relief! All I have to do is enjoy your leadership! This should be easy since you have never lost a battle.
Then this freedom takes on a starkly different appearance: horror. We don't enjoy Him. Suddenly, we wish we had the list back because we could do that. We have developed the discipline to obey the rules. But we have not developed the relationship to experience the joy. And this is what it takes to win the war. What if we started living like our very survival depended on our joy in God? I daresay our lives would work differently. The focus would shift.
I will go so far as to say that our survival does depend on our joy in God. We have made Christianity into a relationship of executive and mindless personal assistant or master and slave-driver. Really? Do we honestly believe that's what God wants from us? mindless obedience? "You don't have to like me. Just do what I say."
How is that honoring to Him? We have settled for a job instead of fulfilling our role in a relationship. I think God wants us to genuinely adore Him. And if we really knew Him, I think that would be difficult to avoid. Our joy in Him glorifies Him. If there was a well of living water, what more could glorify it than people having all their needs and desires met in that water and calling other people to experience the same joy?
God is realigning my thoughts to His Word. I should be fighting for joy, not obedience. I was not called to obey. I was called to know and love and from that love, obey. I have cheapened Him. I am broken over that. I have cheapened His worth in my own life. I have not joyed in Him. I have turned Him into a list. No longer. No longer.
I am fighting to know Him. I am fighting to joy in Him.
This is what I was made to do.
Father God, I love you, but I long to love you more. Call us back with your grace. Forgive us for responding to you with apathetic obedience instead of the joyous love you deserve. Change our hearts. Make us more like you.
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