Beyond Belief - Part 4

Being a disciple of Jesus Christ means that we do more than just believe in Him.  We are expected to follow Him.  We are to imitate His ministry and His love.  Jesus also expects us to imitate His obedience (John 15:10).

Jesus was obedient and submitted to God in all that He did.  He was obedient even in the one thing that the Father asked Him to do that He really didn’t want to do.  There was a part of Him that didn’t want to go to the cross (Luke 22:41-45).  He prayed three times, let this cup pass from me.  But then He said, never the less, not my will, but your will be done (Matthew 26:36-44).  In Philippians 2 we learn that Jesus humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death on a cross.  Crucifixion was the cruelest form of capital punishment inflicted at that time.  The pain of crucifixion was so intense, that a new word had to be coined to describe the pain.  It is out of the pain of experienced during crucifixion that we get the English word “excruciating”.   

The Word of God teaches us in Philippians 2, that the mind of obedience and submission that Christ had is that mind that I should have also.  There are some things that God has asked us to do that we really don’t want to do.  There are painful experiences that we must endure.  We must love people that we really don’t want to love.  We will be called on to make some sacrifices we don’t want to make.  We even be asked to obey some commands that we don’t want to obey.

​The strength of our commitment to God is found in our faithfulness in obeying Him.  When our desires are in conflict with the will of God, we must imitate the obedience of Christ and boldly proclaim, “Not my will, but Your will be done.”  It is when we feel like getting beside ourselves that we need to humble ourselves and imitate the obedience of Jesus.