Our Lord never insists on obedience. He stresses very definitely what we ought to do, but He never forces us to do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit with Him.
Obedience. This is my biggest issue with my boys: it's not so much what they do that upsets me, it's their disobedience to what they've been told. Their "crimes" are pretty petty in the big picture: sneaking candy, watching TV without permission, sneaking games on the computer, etc. But while those issues are trivial, the consistent disobedience behind them is not--THAT is what wears me down year after year with no end in sight. When I consider all the disobedience God has to put up with . . . now there's an example of divine patience!! And am I the obedient son that I should be? Far from it. This again is one of those short, simple phrases that Jesus uses which sounds easy but carries a whole world of weight behind it. Obedience sounds great and seems simple till we actually try it.
That is why whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He prefaced it with an “If,” meaning, “You do not need to do this unless you desire to do so.” “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . .” (Luke 9:23).
He should have said "IF you know what's good for you . . . you'll obey me!" That takes us all the way back to Eden, doesn't it? And then, several thousand years later, the Son comes along telling us the exact same thing that His Father did; should that be a clue that we should take notice and obey?!?! If you wanted to be pessimistic, you might say that nothing's changed since the creation: God's still asking us to obey and we're still ignoring Him. Again, I am amazed at His patience: I can't put up with my own two while He has to contend with everyone He's ever created!
The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear. If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself.
One of my favorite sayings (which I came up with myself) is: authority is not imposed from the top down, it is granted from the bottom up. I can lead all I want, but if nobody follows me . . . then am I really leading? I can tell my children what I want them to do but if they refuse to do it, am I really parenting them? We can continue to lock up criminals over and over again but if they refuse to obey the civil authorities and stop breaking laws, are we really exercising any authority over them or just punishing them after the fact? All this is true of our human experience down here on earth with each other, but not true of our relationship with God. He does have top-down authority and He's given us the choice to recognize it or not; a choice that bears eternal ramifications. We can be our own little petty gods down here and think that we don't have to answer to anyone for it. This will be true until it's not, and then it's too late.
