Whole-hearted obedience?

 

It’s a familiar story. The child in the back seat refuses to sit down. His father finally stops the car and tells the boy they will not move until he sits. The boy finally sits, but as the father starts the car, he hears him say, “But I’m standing up on the inside.” This story helps explain this Scripture:

Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you. (Leviticus 20:7–8)

God says I am to consecrate myself, yet He is the one who does it. “Consecrate” and “sanctifies” are the same word! This word means to be set apart for God. He does it, and when He tells me that I am His, but my inner attitude and that act of God are to match. In other words, God says that I belong to Him and He has set me apart from the world and my old life to belong to Him. No standing up on the inside. No inner rebellion that says, “I am my own master” or that I can do whatever I want to do.

In the OT, God says this of His people. It still applies today:

I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” (Ezekiel 37:26–28)

God made a covenant of peace with me through the sacrifice of His Son. It is an everlasting covenant. He has set me on this earth and His Spirit lives in me. He dwells with me. I am His and He is my God. His purpose in doing all this is that the world will know that He is the Lord who sets His people apart and makes His home in us. This is a forever reality.

So if I take the attitude of the little boy who was sitting down and looking as if he was obedient, I would be saying to God, “I might be doing what You tell me, but in my heart, I’m doing what I want to do” — then I am not consecrating myself — even though the Lord God has consecrated me.

I see this attitude in others. I’ve recognized it in myself. The amazing thing is that we are children of the God who persists. He will not leave us with that resisting attitude.

One example… our family reunion. It happens in ten days. I didn’t want to do it. God’s idea — He set it on me. I argued. He persisted. I finally sat down, still standing up on the inside. But He worked, not so much on me it seemed, but on the reunion. He woke me up three times with a to-do list. He set family members into eager desire to participate. He motivated one cousin to buy 100+ t-shirts so we could dress the same, and others to help pay the bills, and others to take charge of food, or the venue, or registering everyone, or making sure all pay for the catered meals, or games for the kids, or activities that will enable communication between people who either have never met or have not seen one another for decades. I have watched God plan the job He set me apart to do and then started making things happen. My heart soon stopped resisting Him and I am jaw-dropped at what He is doing.

Who could resist a God like that? He overwhelms me. This is like a roller-coaster ride, filled with ups and downs (the downs are not related to the reunion except as distractions) yet a total thrill that is keeping me clinging to Him in wild delight. When He wants something done, I cannot stop it.

PRAY: Jesus, if I ever doubt Your presence or Your power, I realize how foolish that is. You are showing me that even as You ask anything of me, it is You who makes it happen. Even when I resist and fail to fully cooperate, when You want something done, it will be done. Thank You for Your grace and goodness that helps me to sit in joyful surprise and open-mouthed, gratefully able to watch You at work.