Obedience

Obedience has this deeply ringing sense of servitude to it. In my heart I've always placed obedience and slavery a little to close to each other. And more often then not, my definition of certain words come from particular context rather then a learned definition. So in my seeking to understand the word itself first, I looked it up on dictionary.com! Here's how it defines obedience:

o·be·di·ence

   /oʊˈbidiəns/ Show Spelled[oh-bee-dee-uhns] Show IPA

noun

1. the state or quality of being obedient.

2. the act or practice of obeying; dutiful or submissive compliance: Military service demands obedience from its members.

3. a sphere of authority or jurisdiction, especially ecclesiastical.

4. Chiefly Ecclesiastical.

a. conformity to a monastic rule or the authority of a religious superior, especially on the part of one who has vowed such conformance.

b. the rule or authority that exacts such conformance.

While the first thing that appears on the page is a website linking me to possible dog training options (awesome) it was the second definition that truly struck me. "the act or practice of...dutiful or submissive compliance". Duty...another word that I've always contextually understood to be almost a chosen form of slavery for the sake of pride and a skewed sense of glory (thank you wartime movies). Then I saw the word submission. My worldly mind goes directly to thoughts of abuse, quiet wives seeking peace in submission, an inferior giving into it's weakness at the demand or threat of a superior. Within this world, and defined by the world alone, obedience can almost be seen as weakness! A lack of independence, an easy choice of following rather then leading! All lies from the pit, but here I am, surrounded and effected by the many worldly representations of certain kind of obedience.

But we are not of this world! And so I look to the Words of God, revealed and spoken through the words of the Bible and his Gospels. So I turn to another source of reference, BlueLetterBible.org and the Bible sitting in my lap. As I have begun attending a Life Group through my new home church, God has been giving me words of freedom and words of joy. Through many encounters with Him and through the words of his children, Baptism in water and baptism in the spirit have become two things I am aching to understand and one day experience. As a result, a wonderful woman named Fi, suggested I read Romans 6 as a way of learning and coming to understand what it means to be baptized. It's amazing because today I am seeking to understand obedience through God's Word, and yet I didn't have to search in the least, because one of the very first verses that catches my eye on BlueLetter as well as in my Bible, is Romans 6:14-23:

	Rom 6:14	For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
	Rom 6:15	What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
	Rom 6:16	Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
	Rom 6:17	But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
	Rom 6:18	You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
	Rom 6:19	I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
	Rom 6:20	When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
	Rom 6:21	What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
	Rom 6:22	But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
	Rom 6:23	For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in [fn] Christ Jesus our Lord.

AHHH!! It amazes me how God answers the prayers of our heart long before we know the words to pray or the questions to ask! These words I have been reading for days, are just now striking at the core of my heart's ache to know how to be obedient. Obedience to God...yes it is a new kind of slavery, but rather then being slaves to the hurt and brokenness of sin and fear, we choose to be slaves to God, who is the definition Love. I am obedient, because in my obedience to that which is fully Good and filled with love and grace (that he aches to ravish upon me!!) I am not really a slave at all, but rather a friend, seeking the will of the one whom I love and wish to please! In this I am made holy, my brokenness is healed, my shame is made pure, my heart made whole and filled to overflowing with joy and peace. It is not the obedience itself, the idea of slavery, that we should get stuck on, rather it is the Goodness of God that should be our constant thought and focus.

We are slaves to righteousness, rather then sin. And so we are obedient to the will of God, which is his best for us! Being obedient to God is not a giving up of freedom, but rather a choosing to let God control that which he understands. Because God loves us he has our absolute best in mind! He created us with the desires of our hearts, thereby, choosing to be a slave to the will of God is essentially choosing to be a slave to the One who will create for us the life we ache for! He will bless us with adventure, passion, pursuit, love, challenges and joy, if that is what we desire (which I deeply do). So I am a slave to God, because he is the creator of my passions, my deep aches, and my peace and my desires, and I know that it is only in him that I will find complete satisfaction, fulfillment and joy in the life that lies ahead of me, on this world and in eternal life!

HOLY CRAP GOD IS GOOD!!!

Amen and amen.

Blessings, love and joy,

~Andrea Christine