Obedience
On Wednesday nights during the school year our family has been studying character traits of Jesus. Each week we cover a different trait. Recently the topic was obedience.
We started with a game of “Dad Says” (like the game Simon Says), which brought a lot of laughs. Then we sat down and started talking about obedience.
What does the word obedience mean? One thing that I noticed when I was getting ready for the lesson was that obedience isn’t just doing what someone tells you to do. For one thing, what kind of attitude are you having while you are doing the task? Is it really having an obedient heart if you are groaning and rolling your eyes while doing the task?
Also, obedience is doing a job completely. Our example was taking out the trash. If we tell our son to take out the trash and then later we go out and find he left it sitting by the dumpster instead of putting it inside the dumpster, he really hasn’t been obedient to complete the whole task. He knows what is required of this chore…remove the filled trash bag, take it to the dumpster outside, and put in a new trash bag.
There are many verses on obedience we can find in the Bible. One we read was Philippians 2:8 where it tells us Christ was humbly obedient in His dying on the cross. We also talked about examples of obedient people in the Bible. One was Jesus as a boy (Luke 2:40–52). He was obedient to His parents even though He wanted to stay at the temple. “Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.” Luke 2:51 We talked about Naaman (2 Kings 5) and how when he did obey he was cleansed of the leprosy. Our son also brought up Daniel as an example of someone who obeyed God instead of the king.
I’ve been thinking of other examples. Some were examples to us in their disobedience, like Moses when he struck the rock instead of speaking to it as God told him (Numbers 20:1-17). Another is Jonah who was swallowed by a big fish when he disobeyed God (Jonah 1-4). Can you think of others who either obeyed or disobeyed?
We have been given many examples of obedience and disobedience. We can learn from each of them and apply these lessons to our personal lives. We have a choice in what we do. Will you obey or disobey?
Have a day of blessings!
Well said my friend.
Great post Bethany. I love how you started your Bible study with something your children could so easily relate to.
I like what you said about the attitude of obedience. If we are rolling our eyes (or huffing and puffing in my case), I believe it is not obedience, but we feel obligated.
I think that true obedience comes from the heart. Joshua is for me the perfect example (except Jesus of course) of obedience; how he listen to God is a true inspiration for me personally.