Category Archives: obedience

Do you trust me?

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Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.

Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this; He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

(Ps 37. 1-6)

What does it mean to say that we trust someone? Sometimes it is that we respect their advice and wisdom, and would be strongly influenced by their counsel in time of decision-making. Other times it reflects a belief that a person can keep our troubles to themselves, providing us with a safe place to share our burdens.

On a deeper level, when I married, I entrusted myself to my husband, giving him access to my life and great power to affect me for good or ill. Why was I willing to do this? Because I believed then, and still do, that he loved me as well as his human frailty permitted, that he desired the best for me, and that he would be good for me. He has given me similar power in his life, and my desire always is to be good for him. I know that I have failed, and will do so again. I have been selfish, short-tempered, and unreasonable, at times unwilling to see things from his point of view because I know that he is right and I am wrong! By God’s grace, we have grown together, and will go on relying on his help to love and be faithful to one another – continuing to be open and vulnerable because we made a covenant together to trust one another in love.

It seems to me that over and over the bible reveals God asking this very same question of us, his children, “Do you trust me?….Do you trust me enough to do as I ask?” And ultimately, our answer to that question depends, as in human relationships, on whether we believe that the one asking for our trust really loves and wants the best for us. Consider Adam and Eve, stewards of paradise, with one single prohibition (given for their protection) that they refrain from eating the fruit of a certain tree. When Eve stole the fruit and persuaded Adam to eat with her, they were effectively saying that they did not trust God to be good for them, that He was unfair and unreasonable! How wrong they were…..

Consider Abraham, who was asked to trust God first of all for a new land which he had never seen; then for safe keeping in Egypt – which Abraham tried to arrange for himself by cunning, and ended up causing all sorts of trouble(Genesis 12). When God asked Abraham and Sarah to trust him for descendants, they showed that they had not learnt their lesson, and again tried to arrange it for themselves causing more trouble (Genesis 16). The hero of that sorry tale was God, who patiently and faithfully kept his promises to Abraham, allowing him more than one fresh start!

Consider David, who was anointed the future king of Israel many years before he was actually crowned, and who endured many trials along the way, when he might well have given up on God’s promise or else – like Abraham – have taken matters into his own hands. There were two occasions when David could have assassinated Saul most conveniently, but he insisted on trusting God to arrange matters, and held back.

Am I willing to trust God with my life, my children, my work and my church family? Do I really believe that God wants the best for us and that, unlike human promise-makers, He is able to deliver it?

What does this kind of trust look like in daily life? When changes come, do I fret and worry over things I cannot control, or do I strive to act and think in ways which reflect my belief that God’s ways for my life will always be the best – even though at times they may be painful and difficult? Am I willing not to interfere with God’s timing, not to grab the things I think He has promised but wait until they are poured into my lap?

If I truly believe that God has and will always keep faith with me, fulfilling His promises, then I must walk in daily obedience, not fretting over what I do not know and cannot control. I must do the present task, even when I see no clear path ahead.

It is my faithful obedience in all the small things, and my calm, joyful acceptance of God’s directing of my life which will speak most loudly of the love which I receive from Him, and demonstrate most clearly His trustworthiness. May I be given daily strength and courage to glorify Him in this way!

..but God gives the increase

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To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father – to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen

(Rev 1.5&6)

I have been reading this week in Deuteronomy, of the end of Moses’ life and his final exhortations to the people whom he had led so faithfully from Egypt, through the wilderness, and to the borders of the land promised to them by God as their new home. It is a poignant tale, as the great leader reviews God’s mighty acts of deliverance, the people’s rebellion and struggles, his own weaknesses, and the very real choices which lie ahead – to obey and receive the covenant blessings, or to disobey, and bring curses upon their heads.

I think Moses knew quite well that there would be great trouble and sorrow ahead – he had not forgotten the disobedience, idolatry and deep doubts which the Israelites had shown during their wanderings. He knew their hearts, their weakness, and had no illusions that the bounty of their new home would bind their hearts permanently to worship God alone. It must have been very sore, to lay down the burden of leadership, to see the faithful Joshua take it up in full knowledge that the job would take all he could give, and at times almost crush the life and hope out of him.

Did Moses ever wonder whether there would be anything to show for all his labour a few years after his death, any lasting fruit at all? In those times of doubt, perhaps he would go back in his mind to the miraculous provision of food in the wilderness, of water from the rock, and take strength in his faith that this God would not abandon the people. Or perhaps he would go further back to the dramatic time when God – seeming to be exasperated beyond bearing by the disobedience of the people when they created and worshipped a golden calf – had threatened to destroy them utterly and build a new nation around Moses’ own family. That day, Moses had reminded God of the promise made to Abraham, God’s own sworn covenant, to build a nation that would show his glory to the nations. What boldness on Moses’ part, and yet, what faithfulness too, seeking always to serve and magnify God, to honour and obey his word.

I think that this is the key to our own faithfulness in serving God – which is what we are called, enabled and privileged to do. We are made new creatures in Christ, commissioned to bring the good news of the gospel and the kingdom of God to all people, and promised the presence and power of God as we go. We are emphatically NOT given quotas, targets, deadlines or performance indicators. We are not given annual reviews and spreadsheets to complete. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth to make it clear where the credit for their coming to faith should lie!

What, after all is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1Cor 3.5-7)

It is God who builds the church, as it was God who called, saved and formed the people of Israel, keeping his promises to them in spite of chronic disobedience over centuries. Moses was not blamed for their failures, but commended for his faithful obedience in doing all that God had asked of him. So also, Paul points out that each labourer in God’s harvest field is rewarded for his labour, but is not responsible for the fruit – or lack of it.

We need to pray for our church leaders, that they will remember God calls them only to obedience, trusting him for growth in due time, and grieving over a lack of response without taking wrong personal responsibility for it. We need to hold God to his promises, as Moses did, that he will build his church, that he will be glorified among the nations and gather his church from every people under the sun. It is not our job to produce the fruit in other people, but to labour as God gives us abilities and opportunities, in loving and proclaiming the kingdom. In this way, all the glory goes to the one to whom it belongs, and we have the joy of exalting him alone!

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy – to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and for evermore! Amen!

(Jude 24,25)

On the winning side!

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This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.

This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God

(1 John 5.3-5)

The idea of loving by obeying is not appealing to many folk in our contemporary society, but we cannot rewrite the bible for our own social convenience, deleting or re-phrasing the parts that make us feel awkward. I believe that every part of the bible as we have it today is intended to be a blessing to the church, a source of understanding and above all a revelation of God’s love to the world in Jesus Christ. So I must grapple with obedience as love in action, joyful and persevering obedience in the face of opposition, personal suffering, ignorance, mockery, and indifference.

My love for God – feeble though I know it to be – is first and overwhelmingly a response to his love for me, demonstrated through the death of Jesus for my sins. To be loved like that is irresistible, and I want to hold nothing back in my response. I know that I will fail at times, through human weakness and the pressures upon me, but my desire is to love, more and more. I want to make my God glad, to bring joy – if it is not inappropriate to put it this way – to the fount of gladness! He is not mysterious about how I can do this, and tells me clearly that if I love him then I will obey his commands.

This little passage from John’s letter makes it clear that obedience will not be a burden to me because I have been born of God. What does this mean? I think that Paul put it plainly in his second letter to the church in Corinth:- “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5.17). What God has done in me is give birth to new life, the life of Christ in me, and the commands of God are things I now desire with all my heart to fulfill! The power of this world to deceive me, to weaken my will to obey God, is utterly broken, because the nature which responded to those pressures has been put to death in me for ever.

Our world continues to be the beautiful, ugly, bountiful, dangerous place it always was. Human beings continue to suffer illness and death; to inflict appalling suffering upon one another; to be selfish and cruel, indifferent and neglectful, malicious and evil. In just this last few days I have grieved over a friend’s loss of two out of three triplets, shared the burden of another enduring dreadful experiences at work, and shuddered over news from the Middle East of further mass executions of Christians. In what sense do we have victory here?

We have the victory, because we know that NOTHING, none of these dreadful things, will separate God’s beloved children from his love. We know that in the light of eternity, our greatest sorrows and sufferings will seem nothing. We know that in the darkest places of our lives, our God is not only present but intimately close, understanding our pain and pouring his compassionate love into our hearts.

It is because we have been granted faith to believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as our saviour, that we can claim in the midst of grievous troubles to have victory, to know peace. The love of God as revealed in Christ is so great, that we can trust him to be working for our ultimate good in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. We may strive at times to hold on to our confidence in him, but God’s hold on us never loosens, and in that we rest.

I do not write these words lightly, I do not wish to suggest that the sufferings of our world are trivial and should not cause us grief and sorrow – they should, they are appalling blemishes on what should have been a glorious creation, and we hold on to the hope that one day they will be banished altogether. But our understanding of who we are as God’s children facing these troubles makes so much difference. As I wrote, these words from an old song came to mind, I leave them with you as a prayer for this week:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.

(Helen H Lemmel)