Rebellion and Restoration

Obedience and rebellion struggle against each other like Jacob and Esau in Rebecca’s womb.

1. A short history of rebellion.

The Bible is about the fact that we don’t follow God’s directions. The chronicle of disobedience begins from the story of Adam and Eve. It’s a theme that continues throughout the Bible.

God gave the children of Israel the Ten Commandments and the laws of Moses. He promised to bless them if they obeyed; he promised to harm them if they disobeyed. From the time that the laws were given, there was a cycle of obedience and disobedience, with obedience bringing blessings and disobedience ending in the exile of Israel and Judah from the land that God had given them.

The acts of disobedience were not slight. The children of Israel worshiped the gods of the peoples whom the children of Israel were supposed to displace. Some of the disobedience is jaw-dropping. In Judges, for example, the Benjamites of Gibeah, like the men of Sodom before them, sought to rape a stranger in their city; instead, they raped and murdered his concubine. Then the other Benjamites refused to turn over the wrong-doers to justice. This led to war among the children of Israel and the near-extinction of the tribe of Benjamin.

2. A short history of obedience.

But the Bible is also about our obedience.

Noah was obedient when he built the ark. Abraham was obedient when he left his kin and home to live in the land that God would give to his progeny. Gideon was obedient when he attacked the army of the Midianites with a small number of warriors. The prophets were obedient when they preached to the children of Israel, often putting themselves in peril to do so.

Jesus is the model for obedience. The Bible says that he did not live for his own pleasure. (Romans 15:3.) He lived to please God. "My meat [food] is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.." (John 4:34.) He was obedient, even unto death on the cross. "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done." (Matthew 26:42.)

3. The duty to obey.

Jesus calls us to be godly: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48.) But if you are like me, your habit is put yourself first – your habit is to get what pleases you and to do what pleases yourself.

So our eyes, which are the "light of the body" (Matthew 6:22), are drawn to a nice car, a nice house, an attractive woman (or man), a pleasing vacation, or on-sale bow ties (speaking personally); and, if we can, we get them. And relatively little time – again, if you are like me – is spent seeking God’s will and doing it. In modern American society, we seen oblivious to the idea that God might want something other than what we want for ourselves.

It matters. If we don’t do the will of God, we sin. And who would want to increase the suffering of Jesus, who took upon himself our sins?

4. Falling short without knowing it.

I think of things that I did years ago, and I wince at my foolishness, rudeness, boorishness, or cruelty, even though my behavior seemed fine to me at the time. The same is true with becoming Christlike. As we peel away layers of self and replace it with layers of knowledge of God, we might be amazed at how rebellious we were without knowing it in times past. That process likely is never-ending in this world.

To align ourselves to the will of God is to grow spiritually, to discover our own short-fallings, and to correct them. This is putting aside those things that interfere with our obedience, and putting on things that help us conform our will to God’s.

St. Peter spoke of spiritual growth when he said:

[A]dd to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. [2 Peter 1:5-9.]

St. Peter suggests that the believer should grow spiritually. Increased obedience is a sign of that growth, and it is like chess: the basics can be learned in a few minutes. We all know the basics. We all have at least a sense of what it takes to please God. But, like chess, the practice of drawing close to God can be made more perfect over a lifetime.

5. What to do: the spiritual disciplines.

There is value in knowing God, in knowing God’s will, and in doing it. The first step in making ourselves better in these things is wanting to better align ourselves with the will of God.

And, I suggest, the second step is setting time aside to better learn to align ourselves with God.

In this set-aside time, I suggest the practice of the spiritual disciplines. The spiritual disciplines give God scope to change us from within. Without them, the effort to be godly is likely to be a strained effort to act perfectly. That effort leads to frustration and failure.

To a greater or lesser degree, most Christians practice spiritual disciplines already: we all pray, at least from time to time; we all think on God; and we all look into the Bible, at least sometimes. But none of us are perfect at the practice of the spiritual disciplines.

The basic spiritual disciplines are prayer, study, meditation, and worship. These are not ends in themselves; if we think that they are, they might provoke spiritual pride in us, and then they would do more harm than good.

A big purpose of the spiritual disciplines is to learn to die to self and to live for God. Every discipline we undertake, we should undertake largely for that reason. And we should monitor whether they accomplish that. But it probably doesn’t help if this self-monitoring is hyperactive.

6. Books to help.

There are books that give guidance. Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster is a modern classic. The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard is another modern classic. Space for God by Don Postema is designed for study with other persons. These are just a half-handful of the many excellent books on the spiritual disciplines, modern and ancient.

7. Conclusion.

I am far from God. I’ve shared this essay on obedience and the spiritual disciplines, but I largely wrote it for myself. None is so alienated from God that he or she should not strive against that alienation. I have gravitated back toward the spiritual disciplines over the last year or so. I intend to continue putting in time to practice the disciplines, hoping that, through them, God might improve me.