Sometimes I find myself frustrated because I don’t feel like I know what God requires from me. I know that God expects obedience, but I have learned that obedience to God is not necessarily following a set of rules, but more of conforming ourselves to become more in His image, and of all of the things God commands of us, the greatest of all those things is love. I have written before about the change that occurred in my heart when I stopped doing things so that God would love me and started doing them because I love God, and I really feel that it is the root of having a relationship with Him, and it has changed every aspect of my life, including how I treat other people.
As I was reflecting on these changes in my life, my mind drifted to First letter of John. Throughout his letter, John stresses how deeply the connection between obedience and love really is.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as he is pure. 1 John 3:1-3
In my life, I know that I have taken the grace of God for granted; I have claimed to love and know God at times without acknowledging God's claim upon us. He has set us apart and adopted us as His children. How can I not drop to my knees to serve the One who brought me out of death into life? How can I expect to be “in Christ” without striving to serve Him, which in turn shapes me to become more like Him?
This has caused me to look deeply into myself and how I treat the people around me. It has caused me to care about the emotional well-being of people I hardly know, to spend time with people I never would have bothered spending time with before, and to seek to reconcile hard feelings against people who I have had a hard time forgiving. God’s love of me has renewed my love of people by allowing me to see the love he has for me. If the Creator of the Universe can love me with all of my imperfections so limitlessly, I must continue to exhibit the same love to others, yet always keeping the truth of the Gospel at the forefront.
As our Church works through the book of Hebrews, we can see how apparent it is that Jesus is our perfect example of obedience and love. At the small group we belong to, we have been praying for our loved ones who have not yet come to know Christ, and how important it is to keep the Truth of the Bible at the forefront of our conversations with loved ones especially when faced with difficult questions. Sometimes, we love our friends and family so much, and want them to know Jesus so badly, that when difficult questions regarding what we believe are asked, we try to soften the answer we know to be true because we know that they won’t like the answer… but Jesus never did that. He spoke the truth remaining faithful to His Father, and remaining faithful and keeping His promises to us. He has reminded me that His way is always right, although it might not be the easiest, and might cause suffering for a little while, it is the way into His light, and out of the darkness of this world.
Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. Hebrews 3:1-6
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