Trust and Obey

Last week I wrote about my growing desire to put God first and to want Him more than anything else. Even so, I am a sinful human being, and a product of my generation, steeped in postmodern moral relativism. My gut response is to cringe at the thought of anything resembling a moral absolute. I have a hunch most millennials can relate.  I have a hunch that the chorus of this simple hymn might be offensive to those of my generation who would give it more than a moment's thought:

Trust and obey!
For there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus,
But to trust and obey!

Really? No other way? Can't I just hang out with God and be spiritual?

Nope.

We need to trust and obey.  And I'm just going to throw this out there: it is impossible to have one without the other.

Obedience is the visible fruit of trust. Jesus said that if we love him we will obey him; not just that, but that if we don't obey him, he won't have anything to do with us.

So, yeah, we can't trust God without obeying Him. But, I think it is equally important to note that we can't really obey without trusting. Or, at the very least, our ability to obey is severely limited without trust. In order to obey we need to trust that (a) the orders we are following are, in fact, from God, and that (b) God is, in fact, good and worthy of our trust.  If we're honest with ourselves, that's a challenge for all of us at some point - for some more than others.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that we all have sin issues in our lives that we have convinced ourselves are either morally neutral or maybe even good. These could be "big" or "small," but remember that all sin is big; all sin has the end result of separating us from God.

I'll be really real right now. I have a huge problem with food. I wonder how my struggle with overeating would change if I called it what it is - a spiritual problem - and gave it to God. What if I gave over this area of my life, trusted God to provide the food I need, and trusted His grace for the times I falter?  I bet I'd see some changes in my attitude toward food. I bet I'd be a lot happier, too.

Are you up for a challenge?  Ask yourself these two questions:
- Are there any areas in my life where a lack of faith is leading to disobedience?
- If God himself told me this was a sin, would I be willing to give it up?