Obedience: Knowing Christ Aright

The following quote is from the book, Unspoken Sermons, Second Series, “The Truth in Jesus,” Chapter 2, Knowing the Heart of God by George MacDonald.

Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. (Philippians 3:8 NLT)

If you will only obey me, you will have plenty to eat. (Isaiah 1:19 NLT)

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? (Luke 6:46)

Men would understand; they do not care to obey. They try to understand where it is impossible they should understand except by obeying. They would search into the work of the Lord instead of doing their part in it.… It is on them that do his will that the day dawns. To them the day star arises in their hearts. Obedience is the soul of knowledge. (George MacDonald, “The Hope of the Gospel”)

We can never come to know Jesus as he is by believing any theory about him. What I would point people to is a faith in the living, loving, ruling, helping Christ. It is not faith that Christ did this, or that he worked for us that which will save us. Rather, it is faith in the man himself who did and is doing everything for us.

Do you ask, “What is faith in him?”

I answer, the leaving of your way, your objects, yourself, and the taking of his and him; the leaving of your trust in men, in money, in opinion, in character, and religious doctrines and opinions, and then doing as Christ tells you (Luke 14:33).

I can find no words strong enough to impress upon you the weight of this necessity—this obedience….
Do you want to live by faith? Do you want to know Christ aright? Do you want to awake and arise and live, but do not know how?

I will tell you:

Get up, and do something the master tells you. The moment you do, you instantly make yourself his disciple (John 8:31-32).

Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one single thing because he said, “Do it,” and or once abstained because he said, “Do not do it.” I do not say that you will not have, because it came naturally to you, done this or that good thing that fell into harmony with the words of Jesus. But have you done or not done any act, as a conscious decision made because he said to do it or not?

It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe in him, if you do not do anything he tells you. If you can think of nothing he ever said as having consciously influenced your doing or not doing, you have no ground to consider yourself his disciple. To such he says, “Why did you not do the things I told you? Depart from me. I do not know you” (Matthew 7:21-23)!

Yet you can at once begin to be a disciple of the Living One—by obeying him in the first thing you can think of in which you are not obeying him.

We must learn to obey him in everything, and so must begin somewhere. Let it be at once, and in the very next thing that lies at the door of our conscience!

Oh, do not be as the fools who think of nothing but Christ as a theological person to be discussed, and do not set themselves to do his words! What will they have to answer for, such teachers who have turned the regard of their listeners away from the direct words of the Lord himself, which are spirit and life, to contemplate instead various plans of salvation that they twist out of the words of his apostles (2 Peter 3:14-18)!

There is but one plan of salvation, and that is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ! And that belief is no mere mental acknowledgment about him, but involves nothing more, nothing less than to take him for what he is—our Master, and to take his words as if he meant them, which he did.

To do his words is to enter into vital relation with Jesus; to obey him is the only way to be one with him (John 15:10). The relationship between him and us is an absolute one; it can begin to live in no other way but in obedience: it is obedience. There can be no truth, no reality, in any initiation of being at one with him, that is not obedience (John 14:15,21,23).

It is eternally absurd to think of entering into a relationship with God, the very first of which is not founded on doing what he says. I know what the father of lies whispers to those to whom such teaching as this is distasteful: “It is the doctrine of works!” But one word of the Lord humbly heard and received will suffice to send all the demons of false theology into the abyss. Jesus said that the man that does not do the things he tells them, builds his house to fall in utter ruin (Matthew 7:24-27). Jesus instructs his messengers to go and baptize all nations, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18-20).

Do you say it is faith Jesus requires, not works?

Heartily I agree! Is not faith the highest act of which the human mind is capable? But faith in what? Faith in what Jesus is, in what he says—a faith that can have no existence except in obedience—a faith which is obedience. To do what Jesus wishes is to put forth faith in him…

So I ask again: “Do you put your faith in Christ, or in human doctrines and commandments?” If it is in Christ, do you see that above all things and all thoughts, you are bound to obey him? Do you find it hard to trust him? Hard it will remain, while the things he tells you to do, things you can do, you will not try. How will you grow capable of trusting him to do his part by you, as long as you do not do your part by him? True faith, true belief, is not possible where there is not a daily doing of the things he says. They are what makes faith take root and spring to life.

How else can you be made capable of trusting him? The very thing that makes you able to trust in him, and so receive all provision from him, is obedience to him. Neglecting the things he says, there is no soil in which your faith can grow.

Thus again comes the question: what have you done this day because it was the will of Christ? What have I done? If we chance to do his will because it falls in with our own designs, it may be a good thing. But it is not obedience. Obedience comes when, as a conscious act, we lay aside the appetite, the desire, the inclination of our flesh, our self, the tendency in which our human soul would go if left to itself, and instead do what he tells us, subduing our own will, mastering it, subjugating it, and bringing it into submission to his.

Have you or I today dismissed, even once, an anxious thought for tomorrow because Jesus told us to?
Have you ministered to any needy soul or body, or kept your right hand from knowing what your left hand did, telling no one of your action?

Have you, this day, begun to leave all and follow him?

Did you set yourself not to criticize, talk against, or judge others? Did you bring fair and righteous judgment to your decisions?

Are you wary of covetousness?

Did you forgive your enemy and do him good or showed him kindness?

Are you seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness before all other things? Are you hungry in thirsting after righteousness?

Have you this day given, of money, of time, of possessions, of skill, or of compassion, to someone who asked you?

Have you shown consideration, done good, returned kindness for a wrong done you, extended patience, been a servant, rejoiced in adversity, taken the role of humility before others, prayed for someone you don't like, trusted God to supply a pressing need? Have you done any of these things, suppressing your natural tendency to the contrary, and done them with rejoicing because Jesus said to do them?

Tell me something that you have done, are doing, or are trying to do because he told you. If you cannot, it is no wonder you have difficulty trusting him.

Of course I know that no man or woman can yet perfectly do what Christ tells him. But are you trying? Obedience is not perfection, but making an effort (Philippians 3:12-14). He never gave a commandment knowing it was of no use for it could not be done. He tells us to do only things that can be done (1 John 5:3-4). He tells us a thing knowing that we must do it, or be lost. Not even his father himself could save us but by getting us at length to do everything he commands, for there is no other way to know life, to know the holy secret of divine being.

He knows that you can try, and that in your trying and failing he will be able to help you, until at length you will do the will of God even as he does it himself. He takes the will and the imperfect deed, and it makes the deed at last perfect.

The most correct notions without obedience are worthless. The doing of the will of God is the way to oneness with God, which alone is salvation. Sitting at the gate of heaven, sitting on the footstool of the throne itself, you could not be at peace, except the smallest point of consciousness, your heart, your mind, your brain, your body, your soul, we're one with the living God. If you had one brooding thought that was not a joy in him, you would not be at peace. If you had one desire you could not leave absolutely to his will, you could not be at peace. God, all and in all, ours to the fulfilling of our very being, is the religion of the perfect, son-hearted Lord Christ. ■