THE WILL TO LOVE - Vital Christianity

76Here we have the great God whom the heavens and earth could not contain, submittingHimself to His earthly parents.The keynote of Jesus’ life was “I came . . . not to do mine own will, but the will of Himthat sent Me” (Jn 5:30; 6:38). Jesus delighted in His Father’s will from the very beginning andright through His life. The Father’s will led Jesus to touch lepers, to speak to harlots, to eat withpublicans and sinners, to spend His life in the service of others. In His Father’s will Jesus choseJudas though He knew he would betray Him. Obeying His Father’s will, He took the cup, thebitter cup of death, and drank it. As Paul puts it, “He became obedient to death—even death on across!” (Php 2:8).Obedience always involves suffering. If our Master had to go that way, can we, Hisfollowers, do any less? There are no easy ways to learn the lesson of obedience. There are noshort cuts.The Lord only spent three years in preaching and teaching, but He spent thirty-three yearsin obeying God, His heavenly Father. During His growing years, He was subject to Mary andJoseph as well (see Lk 2:51). Why? In order that a rebellious, proud and diabolically independentworld, might learn the value of obedience and submit to God.Jesus lived a life of obedience and finally died in accordance with the Father’s will. AsIsaiah, the prophet, puts it, “It was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer”(Isa 53:10). His obedience was, as ours must be, an expression of love.INTERNAL AND NOT JUST EXTERNALObedience does not mean the execution of an order given by a drill sergeant. It springs,rather, from love for the one who gave the order. The merit of obedience is less in the act thanin the love; the submission, the devotion, the service that obedience implies are not born ofservitude, but rather spring from and are unified by love. Obedience is servility only to thosewho do not understand the spontaneity of love.Obedience to God is a matter of sanctification of growing in love and knowledge and theperformance of God’s will. At times it involves taking a step in the dark, but the One who willcommand is also the One who will guide and strengthen us.One point must be clear: obedience is not legalism. It is not doing things whereby weearn or merit salvation. Obedience is one side of the coin and faith the other. Neither can existalone.James warns against the deception involved in merely hearing the Word. He says thatknowledge adds its own responsibility: “whoever know what is right to do and fails to do it, forhim it is sin” (Jas 4:17).