OBEDIENCE AND BLESSINGS

“Obedience brings blessings.”  This is a biblically inspired motto that my son, Edric, drilled into the hearts of his children.  They use this aphorism to motivate the kids to know the connection between love, obedience, blessings and disciplinary consequences. Indeed, Edric and Joy’s application of this biblical teaching in their discipline and raising up of their kids has borne a lot of awesome and parent-gratifying results.  And the kids are so much the better for it. 

I believe that the key to the well-mannered behavior of Edric and Joy’s kids is not so much the motivation for good behavior inspired by this chant: “Obedience brings blessings.” Rather it is that plus the demotivation for bad behavior, which is the disciplinary consequences that Edric and Joy are swift to apply whenever their children disobey Mom and Dad. Because of this swift discipline, their kids learn very early on, and they know that behind the “Obedience brings blessings” happy promise is the disciplinary rod. Had their parents not enforced discipline at an early stage, but instead bribed them to obedience, the children would just have grown up as manipulative spoiled brats, exchanging token obedience for the benefits of their parents’ bribes.

I’d like to share my own personal reflections about this because I think there’s more to it than what these three words seem to imply or require.  And I don’t mean this to be a parenting lesson. Rather, I’d like us to understand how God deals with us, His children, His people, His flock. But before I proceed, I want to validate that indeed God made those promises to the people whom He had chosen and gathered to be His own.  Indeed, there is a connection between love and obedience, and between disobedience and disciplinary consequences.

The earliest biblical reference to the blessings that comes from obedience is from the book of Leviticus 26.  Verse 3 starts with “If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,” and then proceeds to enumerate a series of blessings (v 3-13) promised to the chosen people for continuing faithfulness and obedience to God, ranging from seasonal rains, to abundant crops, to peace and military security, and finally to the very presence of God among them. 

This pattern is repeated several times in Deuteronomy[1] chapters 6, 28 and 30. The Israelites are reminded to be careful to obey all of God’s laws (chief of which was to have no other gods beside Yahweh)  so that they might prosper abundantly, and be kept alive and set high above the nations.

To appreciate this promise, though, one must understand the context when these promises were said. 

The first thing we must know is that these promises did not stand alone by themselves. They were accompanied by an enumeration of curses. The message was something to the effect that if – on the other hand – they fail to obey God’s commands, and if they turn to other gods, then something grave would happen to them.   In fact, that long list of promised blessings in Lev 26: 3-13 is followed by a list of chilling curses for disobedience that is three times longer than the blessings for obedience! 

The second thing we must know is that in most cases when God reminds people about His commands, He first reminds them about what He had done even before they were gathered as His people, even before He had made a covenant with them.  A typical statement would be in Deut 6:12, where the Lord God said, “be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”  In Deut 29, just before Moses exhorted the people to enter into a covenant with God, he encouraged them by reminding them about their deliverance from Egypt, about the miraculous provisions in the wilderness, and the victories over their enemies whose lands they now occupy — all of these blessings coming from Yahweh. Psalm 105:44-45 praises the Lord precisely for this: “He gave them the lands of the nations, and they fell heir to what others had toiled for — that they might keep His precepts and observe His laws.”

What’s my point?  My point is that God did not require the people to obey him as a condition to Him rescuing them out of Egypt.  No.  He didn’t tell Moses to announce to the people, “Hey, listen up:  if you all follow God, He will rescue you out of Egypt.”

Instead, God had already shown the people His great love and mercy in a mighty way before He offered a covenant promise with them.  Before promising their allegiance, the people had already been rescued from a horrible situation, and God had now placed them in a good situation out of harm’s way and on the road to the Promised Land.  When He sought their obedience and allegiance to Him, He was really saying, “Listen, I have blessed you, and so now, you know what great things I can do.  So, don’t forget how I had rescued you, and how I’ve set you apart as my own. Obey me as your one and only God from now on, because if you don’t and you choose to worship other gods, then I’ll leave you alone, and you’ll return to the bad spot where you were before I rescued you, and maybe even worse.”

In other words, God’s blessings precede any of His commands demanding obedience.  Just look at the Genesis story.  Adam and Eve were already in paradise and were enjoying paradise even before God commanded them about the forbidden fruit.  Or read the story about the healing of the invalid at Bethesda in John 5; this invalid whom Jesus healed didn’t even know who it was who healed him. Finally, Jesus tells the healed invalid: “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (v 14)

To remind us how blessed we are, despite our sinfulness, our ungodliness, and our waywardness, let’s see what scripture says: 

Psalm 103:1-4 reminds us to remember all our blessings:  “Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.   Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits —  who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.“

1 John 4:10 declares:  “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 

And finally, Paul argues in Rom 5:6-8: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

In short, “We love because he first loved us.” ( 1 John 4:19) 

We need to remind ourselves over and over and over again, how much God loves us, and how much He cares for only the best things for us, and how totally undeserving we are of any of His graces.  But in His great love for us, He has laid out many promises of abundance, and He has exercised His sovereign power in order to guarantee for us eternal happiness. 

The good news is that God loved us first even while we were sinners.  And this is why we praise the goodness of God.  This is why we exalt God over all, as a loving Father, a generous King, and a strong refuge. There is no god like Him.

I don’t mean to diminish the value and importance of obedience.  Certainly, faith in God, and obedience to Him is what will earn us eternal life.  In fact, obedience is key to demonstrating our love for God. 

But we need to check our motivation for obeying God.  In summary, here’s what I’m saying: Expecting that God will bless us if we obey Him, is like saying that blessings are God’s response to our love for Him.  If you give it a moment of thought, you will realize how absurd that is.  On the contrary, our obedience should be our response to God’s love. 

Read more about our obedience as a response to God’s love in this article:  “OBEYING A LOVING GOD”. Coming soon 🙂

---

[1] Deut 6:24-25, 28:1-2, 30:9-10