Obedient Instinct
“As the LORD commanded his servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and Joshua did it; he left nothing undone of all that the LORD commanded Moses.”
Today’s Text: Joshua 11:1-15 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
I was not what you would call an obedient kid. In fact, I was quite rebellious. Because of that, I caused my parents a good amount of distress and concern. However, when I enlisted into the Air Force, disobedience was not an option if you wanted to stay in the Air Force and receive an honorable discharge.
I learned the value of obedience. Obedience allowed work to run efficiently. Obedience fostered peace. Obedience was the path to a good reputation and timely promotions.
Of course, I wasn’t perfectly obedient, but I came to realize how disobedience causes havoc and stirs up trouble and creates chaos. Most of all, disobedience in the military jeopardizes the mission and might even cost people their lives.
The Lord Jesus has given commands to His servants the apostles. The apostles carried out the Lord’s commands and conveyed them to us. Will I leave nothing undone of all that the LORD commanded the apostles?
And if we think about it, obeying our Lord or disobeying our Lord has much greater implications than obeying or disobeying does in the military. The Lord’s eternal mission is at stake. Eternal lives are at stake.
Because of those correlations, in some ways, I consider my role as a pastor and as a child of God to be that of soldier. My “job” really just comes down to one thing: Obey the Lord.
And as far as that is concerned, while every command of Jesus is important, there may be tiers of Jesus’s commands that are graded on how critical they are for the mission of the kingdom.
At the very top tier are the commands: worship God with all you got, love others as yourself, and bear witness to Jesus Christ in this world.
How we execute on those commands is left up to us. But if we as a church do not become aligned on how we execute on those commands, we will not be able to fulfill those commands—at least, not as effectively as we should. We might be able to execute those commands as individuals, but that is not God’s will or God’s way. And that is why the word of God also exhorts the people of God to unity.
Unity is not an abstract concept. Unity is always achieved in a church by aligning around and aligning behind a vision. And that is why followership is always more valuable than leadership in the kingdom of God.
Father, Your word is a lamp for our feet, a light four our path. Forgive us for trusting in ourselves more than we trust in Your word. Forgive us for not trusting in Your word because it would mean letting go of trusting in ourselves. You have a better way for us. And You have been growing our faith in that way. Grow us more, Lord. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
