God Wants Our Obedience, Not Our Accomplishments!

“Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and obey it.”

– Luke 11:28

In July 1976, Israeli commandos made a daring raid at an airport in Entebbe, Uganda, in which 103 Jewish hostages were freed.  In less than 15 minutes, the soldiers had killed all 7 of the kidnappers and set the captives free.  As successful as the rescue was, however, three of the hostages were killed during the raid.  As the commandos entered the terminal, they shouted in Hebrew, “Get down! Crawl!”  The Jewish hostages understood and lay down on the floor, while the guerillas, who did not speak Hebrew, were left standing.  Quickly the rescuers shot the upright kidnappers.

 But two of the hostages hesitated – perhaps to see what was happening – and were also shot and killed.  One young man was lying down and actually stood up when the commandos entered the airport.  He, too, was shot with the bullets meant for the enemy.  Had these three heeded the soldier’s command, they would have been freed with the rest of the captives. 

 Salvation is open to all of us, but we must be obedient to Christ’s command to repent and make Him Lord.  Otherwise, like these hostages, we will perish with the judgement meant for the Enemy!

One of the key messages in all of Scripture, in both the Old Testament and New Testament, is that of obedience to God.  In the OT, the Hebrew people continually failed to be obedient to God, turning away to chase after man-made idols and to worship other gods.  In Daniel 9:9-11, the prophet writes that “The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; we have not obeyed the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets. All Israel has turned away, refusing to obey you.”  And in the NT, Jesus Himself says in John 14:23, “if anyone loves me they will obey my teaching.”  Obedience does not guarantee our salvation, because we are saved by grace and not our own works (Ephesians 2:8-9). But obedience does demonstrate our love for God, and is the main thing that God wants from us in return for His love for us! And like the above story illustrates, obedience to God will save us from perishing with the enemies of God!

Often times we feel as though we need to do good works or achieve something significant for God with our lives.  And so we do things that either bring attention to ourselves or our own accomplishments, as if God will somehow love us more or will guarantee our acceptance as His child.  But that is not what Scripture teaches.  God loves us no matter what we do (Romans 5:8).  But He desires our obedience as a sign of our love for Him.  Obedience is our way of thanking Him and honoring Him for what He has first done for us.  If you are a parent you know exactly what this means.  You love your children no matter what they do.  But your desire is to have them be obedient to your guidance and wisdom because it pleases you and is a sign of their respect for you as their parent. God desires no less from us!

So we should not obey God’s Word because we have to, but we should obey God’s Word because we want to!  And God is pleased whenever we are obedient because it demonstrates our love for Him and gives Him the glory and praise. Our obedience should never be driven by our own self-esteem or in an attempt to impress God, but rather solely as a humble servant trying to please His Master.  Jesus never sought fame for himself nor did anything more than what God asked Him to do.  The outcome of whatever we do for God should always be to praise and glorify Him, never ourselves. God wants our obedience, not our accomplishments!

So as we enter 2014, let us commit our lives to being obedient to God’s Word, not to try to “score points with God” or to impress anyone, but only so that He alone who is worthy might be glorified!