Obedience Isn't a Price. It's a Partnership.
Many of us suffer at the idea of being obedient to God. Admittedly, it was my most difficult roadblock at the beginning of my rededicated walk.
I would align myself with His Word and then negotiate my way back to what felt more comfortable. I would lean on my habits. I would return to my familiar places.
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding."
I remember explicitly the day I decided to submit my entire being to Him. It wasn't without labor and groaning. My eyes were full of tears, meanwhile my heart was empty. My body was weaker than I ever remember it being.
I had run away from submission until the concrete of the sidewalk had ended and the weeds were thigh-high.
In reality, I was always sitting on my back porch.
I finally got it.
All He wanted was my fully committed "yes."
He had given me His Yes. He had fully committed by taking on sin and dying for my ransom.
"For all the promises of God find their Yes in him."
That's when it hit me.
Obedience isn't a price we pay. It is the gift of partnership.
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments."
Jesus had taken on our sin and endured pain undeserved. He showed us how to submit to the Father's will. Even in the garden of Gethsemane, knowing the suffering that awaited Him, Jesus prayed:
"My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."
The very obedience Jesus demonstrated is the same obedience we are called to.
Therefore, it is a shared experience. Jesus, in His greatness, humbled Himself and became like us. Not merely to experience our humanity, but to become our merciful and faithful high priest, reconciling us to God.
"Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people."
He showed us what it means to submit fully to the Father's will, so that we might strive to become more like Him.
"And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
What a glorious God we serve.