To begin to understand this properly, we need to remind
ourselves of the composition of the character of God. To be a bit simplistic, but also accurate,
God is love. God defines love. He is an example of love. He understands love in many forms from parent
to child, from friend to friend, from intimate to intimate. Everything we know about love is everything
we should understand about who, or what God is.
God is life. He is the spark that
makes an inanimate object made of dust and water to ‘become’ a living
soul. Notice I did not say that man was
already a living soul, when God breathed into him, man BECAME a living
soul. The idea that our souls have
always existed and will always exist is not based in scripture.
But if God is both Love and Life, then where does obedience
enter the equation? Anything that is not
comprised in the character of God that causes separation from God could be
defined as ‘sin’. In essence ‘sin’ is
the opposite, or it stands in opposition to God, to everything we know about
God, therefore to both love and life itself.
‘Sin’ or evil as I commonly refer to it, is the embodiment of death and
pain. What does not lead to love, leads
to pain. What does not promote life,
promotes death. There really are no grey
areas, no areas of compromise. There is
only love and life, or pain and death.
Everything we do, we say, we think about, is destined towards one or the
other of these end results. When we
separate ourselves from love and life, we embark on the path of pain and
death. It is NOT a punishment, it is a
simple reality.
It is simply cause and effect. It is like gravity. Jump as high as you want in the air, but
without assistance, you will return to the earth you jumped from. Coming back to earth after jumping is NOT a
punishment. It is reality. It is the nature consequence of gravity. Gravity is not a concept from which one can
negotiate through reason and alter the effects.
It is a natural law. We do not
question it. We have built technology to
overcome it, but we recognize that it is an immutable force on our lives. The ‘laws’ of love are exactly the same. When we stray from the path of love we find
ourselves amidst things that have nothing to do with love. This is NOT punishment, it is reality. Existence offers no 3rd choice, no
3rd option. There is love and
life, and everything else, everything not of love or life – one or the other.
Once we understand there are really only 2 choices for how
we exist, we begin to grasp the concept of the consequences of the choices we
make. When God asks us to obey Him, He
is not threatening us with punishment, RATHER He is trying to help us avoid all
the pain and death that comes as a natural consequence of turning away from
love and life. He is trying to warn us
about the results from the seemingly innocuous choices that wind up leading to
the addictions of death. He is trying to
spare us pain. He is trying to bring us
happiness. He is trying to teach us what
love is, why it is of value, why we should embrace it, and how. Obedience to God is not a prison sentence. It is shelter in a castle against a torrent
of pain, aggression, and death.
How do you get through to a stiff-necked people? How do you make your point to a defiant child
determined to touch the stove after repeated warnings not to. Sometimes you allow them to experience the results
of the choices they are determined to make.
Just a few of the natural consequences of the evil choices we make are
usually enough to ‘wake us up’. The
entire Old Testament in the Bible is a love letter from an unrequited God
reaching out desperately to an unfaithful partner. Despite gifts and blessings, in the face of
shear ingratitude, enduring slander and lies, love still reaches out for
us. But we ignore it, and steadfastly
choose our own demise. So from time to
time God removes his protective hand, and evil is given enough latitude to
remind us what its true nature is really like.
Again this is not a punishment of God. This is only Him allowing just a little of
the fury we embrace to come our way.
Were God to completely remove His protecting hand from over us, we would
be consumed in our evil in seconds.
Cause and effect. Demons who have
long since chosen their own destiny would be happy to destroy us completely and
in so doing cause pain to our Father God, were He to allow it. We rarely see the battlefield we are walking
through. We rarely understand the
ferocity of evil that knows its time is drawing to a conclusion. Desperation leads to even more fury. And we act as if it does not even exist.
To call God a dictator because he naturally embodies the
complete definition of love, is the same as railing against gravity for having
the audacity to keep you grounded on this earth. It serves no purpose, and is completely
without meaning. God is love. The creator God who existed before time and
memorial could be nothing else but love, or he would have naturally expired and
existence would not exist. There would
eventually be nothing left under the government of Satan. Even He would eventually kill himself when
there was nothing left to consume. It is
the natural end-state of anything that is not comprised of love and life.
Obedience then is not about threats or punishments, or even
cause and effect, so much as it is about teaching and guidance. We are given rules, directives, advice, and
edicts as a way of teaching us that some of our natural desires that are carnally
based and routed in heredity of hundreds of years are not the ways of love or
life. We are given ‘commandments’ to
teach us the definition of love. Think
of them as a how-to, or a book of love for idiots. Morality is more than just the subjective
measurement of one man over another, it is an objective standard which is
defined through the practice of love by the author of love itself.
Amy Grant (and perhaps Brown Bannister if I recall), used to
sing the song “I Have Decided”. Part of
the lyrics read … “being good is just a fable.
I just can’t cause I’m not able.
I’m gonna leave it with the Lord.”
I used to think this song was incorrect.
I judged that being good is not a fable, and we could choose to do
it. I was partially correct, but the song
was more so. We have the choice to Obey,
in that we have the choice to allow God to control our lives and our will. When we release control to God, He changes
us. ONLY in this way is obedience even
possible. Now think this through for
just a minute. Not only is Obedience not
used by God as a threat; God knows HE is the ONLY one who can affect obedience
in our lives. We CANNOT obey on our own. We can only choose to allow God control over
us, and in so doing find ourselves in obedience. This destroys the concept of a dictator. What dictator did you ever hear of that would
do the work FOR you, within you, and only hold you accountable to PERMIT Him to
do so?
“To Obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the
fat of Rams.” What the prophet was
conveying in this scripture could be applied in our vernacular as … to allow
God control over our will, is to learn reform, to learn change. And to reform
is better than to repent. And to listen
is better than to regret. Seeking to
align our characters with our God and to find His ways natural to us, is far
better than to simply rely on repentance for continually embracing evil, pain,
and death.
Everything God has ever done, in scripture, and in your day
to day life, has been about leading us all back to Him. He has been our ever patient teacher,
outlining how to live with meaning, how to love, and what is important. Sometimes the nature of our hardened hearts
has lead to lessons that seem harsh.
Sometimes our blindness to the extent to which evil would lead us, has
lead to eye-opening seemingly destructive lessons that break our hearts, and
humble our prides. But were it not so,
we would be lost without hope. We must
trust our teacher, that to learn the ways of love and life is a prize unto
itself. It is a reward unto itself. It is the kingdom of Heaven begun right here
and right now …
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