Obedience In The Midst Of Rebellion

 

“For I am also a man under authority,” (Matthew 8:9).

 

“For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ,” (Galatians 1:10).

 

Yesterday, around 7:00 AM, as I was driving to the grocery store with little traffic, a car came racing up behind me and was soon on my bumper. I was in the left lane, a semi-truck was on my right, so I had no place to go. The road is one with traffic lights, retail stores, and residential communities – the speed limit is 40 MPH. I sped up enough to get in front of the truck and allow the car to zoom ahead. As is often the case, and I derive no little amusement from it when it happens, the speedster was stopped at the next traffic light.

 

When I drive I do so with the assumption that someone will run every traffic light, but I don’t think much about other reckless behavior such as this encounter, even though it isn’t uncommon. Perhaps this is because we seldom drive on limited access highways, nor do we drive at night as a rule, when minds are more likely to be altered due to certain activities. Nevertheless when it happens, as it did yesterday morning, I remind myself that the other driver and I live in two different worlds that overlap, that bump up against each other as tectonic plates.

 

Just as in the days of the Judges, today “everyone does what is right in his or her own eyes.” We do this on the road, we do this at work, we do this in politics, we do this in national and social policy, we do it in foreign policy, we do this in economics, and we do this in the professing church. Whether or not Darwin was right in his conclusions when examining the past may not be such an important question, when we consider that maybe he was prophetic without knowing it, maybe the “survival of the fittest” or of the most brutal, or the strongest, or the hungriest, or the most deceitful, was actually a prediction of where we were headed…just maybe.

 

However, for the servant of Jesus Christ, for the man or woman or young person who professes to know Him, to truly know Him, well...we belong to Another, we belong to Jesus, He has purchased us with His blood, called us to Himself through His love, and we are  His bondservants, we belong to Him.

 

And this means that as disciples we live lives of obedience to Him and service to others. It means we love and pray for those who oppose us and our Lord (Matthew 5:43 – 48). It means we lay down our lives for one another, just as Jesus laid down His life for us (1 John 3:16). It means that we reject demonic vitriol and hatred, self-aggrandizement (religious and political, indeed, in all areas of life), it means that we sow seeds of peace (James 3:13 – 18).  

 

It means that as the world is losing its mind, that we live in the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16; Phil. 2:5; Col. 3:1 – 4; Rom. 12:1- 2).

 

You and I are to be the Presence of Jesus Christ, every day, every moment.

 

We do not run from a world of evil, we stretch out our hands in peace, we bear our breasts, our hearts to the world, and we say, “Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, come to Jesus.”

 

“We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).