Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

Growing Obedience

Hebrews 5v8 “Though he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.”

Obedience is not doing what someone says when you want to do it anyway.

Obedience is doing what someone says when you want to do something different. It is allowing the will of someone in authority to override our own.

Obedience to God grows as we become used to doing things God’s way not our way.

In this verse, we read that Jesus “learned obedience”. When he was in heaven with the Father, I imagine that they never thought differently from each other. When Jesus was on earth and faced with the suffering he was about to go through, he pleaded with God to take it from him, but then prayed “not my will, but your will.” It was not that Jesus ever disobeyed God the Father previously, but that the real clincher of obedience was whether he was going to do what His Father wanted despite the cost to him personally.

So it is for us. What are the tests of obedience in your life today? Are you learning obedience even in the midst of difficulty? Are you more likely to obey God now than you were back in 2020?

May the Lord grow our obedience so that we may be like Christ.

 

With love and blessing,

Roland