TOD 10.10.07

How much of our obedience to God is mandatory, and how much of it is optional? Of course this sounds like a trick question, but in fact it’s a question which simply reveals the trick most of us play on ourselves when thinking about obedience to God.

If we’re honest, most of us think that obedience to God is a matter of doing “just enough.” We must do just enough in order to be good Christians or to preserve our salvation or some other nebulous concept, and anything beyond this minimum is up to us. If we do more, we get rewarded more, but it’s not mandatory. Our minds having been polluted by jobs and school, we think in terms of doing just enough to not get fired or just enough to avoid a bad grade instead of feeling we must be the best employees and the A students.

Of course there are many areas where God does leave the choice to us, but in those areas where He has spoken, it is a gross mistake to say that obedience is ever optional. And at those times when we think it is, we would do well to recall Who is the Master and who is not.