As a parent I’ve heard this phrase probably more times than I can count. It’s one of the most annoying phrases we can hear. Right up there with are we there yet! When my children tell me they don’t want to do something, it generally begins a nice conversation about who’s in charge and sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do in life. Then they will begrudgingly shuffle off to do the thing they don’t want to do but really don’t have a choice but to do. It’s called obedience. We don’t have to like it but we all have to obey someone at some point in life.

I was thinking about this very idea of obedience recently when someone told me they were having a hard time reading their Bible because they really didn’t want to do it. I can sympathize with this very thought. There are things in life that I just don’t want to do. And sometimes spending my morning focusing on my relationship with God is the easy thing to push to the side. I don’t always want to do it. So what do we do if we don’t feel like cultivating our relationship with God? There are some who believe that if their heart isn’t in it all the way that they shouldn’t do it. I don’t really agree with this philosophy and here’s why. There are two aspects to our relationship with Jesus: sincerity and obedience.

Sincerity is the idea that my heart is totally into this. I can’t wait to open my bible and read today’s reading. I want to spend my time in prayer and in worship and cultivating this amazing heart for God. Being sincere in our relationships is absolutely important! We should be sincere in our relationship with God. We should desire to grow deeper in love with the things of God. We should want to set aside time to read our bibles and pray and listen to songs of praise. But let’s be honest here. We don’t always do what we should do.

This is where obedience comes into play. The idea behind obedience is doing what we know we should do regardless of whether we want to do it or not. Obedience is about following through with doing the right thing even when the right thing isn’t easy or even desirable. Obedience is listening to our parents when we don’t like what they have to say. It’s following the laws of the land even when we don’t necessarily agree with them. Obedience is doing the right thing even when no one is listening.

When it comes to our faith lives, I feel we focus a lot of attention on the sincerity aspect and spend very little time looking at the life of the follower of Jesus through the eyes of obedience. If, in our desire for sincerity of faith, we fail to act when we don’t feel like it then we are negating the command for obedience in following Christ. The call to follow Jesus means that we will follow Christ when we feel like it and when it’s not as convenient for us. When we are motivated by the Spirit and when our faith is lacking. We’ll be sincere and obedient in following God’s call on our lives.

I think it’s important to realize that some things in our lives as followers of Jesus we will be required to do. We do them not because it’s easy or because it’s popular but because we have to do it. Now don’t go all hypersensitive on me here. Obedience doesn’t make us right with God. It doesn’t earn God’s favor. Obedience is a natural outflow of my understanding of God’s love for me. When we truly grasp the power of God’s love and forgiveness, we’ll see the imporance of worship when we feel like it and when we don’t feel like it.

Whether your moment of prayer and meditation is sincere or merely out of obedience, it really doesn’t matter. Both are necessary. Both are beneficial. Both are part of growing in Christ. Both are marks of a disciple. Now get up and do it!