Obedience

Obedience is better than sacrifice.  This portion of scripture found in I Samuel 14:22 kept playing through my head as I thought about the sacrifice I was feeling, being out in cold rainy weather.  I would have preferred to stay cuddled up in my nice warm home with warm blankets.  Relaxing in comfort was what I wanted after a long work week and busy schedule outside of work the week preceding.

Every scripture I read and journaled over the week pointed towards obedience, even when at first glance it had nothing to really do with obedience. The focus of the scriptures was supposed to be how God knows me, but the question I kept coming back to is “If I know that God knows me, why am I not obedient to Him?”

If I know His heart is for me, and He wants what is best for me, even if something is outside my comfort zone, why would I not obey?  If I know God’s ways are higher than mine, and that He has a perfect plan and purpose for my life, why would I need be obedient to His leading.

When I made it back home, and was in the comfort I had “sacrificed,” the question in James 2:20 just ruminated in my soul. But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? If my faith is in God’s Word, why is my obedience not showing it?  Saying I believe something means nothing if there is no an action behind it.  Faith without action is dead.   Faith requires obedience.

Growing requires obedience.  Romans 1:17 says “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”  It is in the gospel that the righteousness of God is revealed.    If I go from faith to faith, then faith requires action on the revelation of the good news of the gospel.  Faith is the realization of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).  At the moment I can see it, feel it or experience it, it is no longer faith.  I must act on what I am hoping for before I will see it.  I have to live out the revelation of the gospel in my life in order to grow my faith and go from faith to faith.   Faith can not grow without obedience.