Simple Obedience

1 Samuel 15:22b

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

I know the importance of obedience. As a parent I have learned the necessity of teaching obedience to your children. There are times when instant obedience is not only pleasing to the parent, but also is absolutely necessary and beneficial to the child to insure their safety and protection. When a car is coming and your child is about to dart out into the street, there is no time to stop and explain all the reasons why they should obey.

We must teach our children to obey simply because we said to. Now I know that the popular teaching is to always explain the details of why mommy or daddy are telling them to do something, but the fact is that they must learn to obey simply because they must learn to submit to authority. The reason there is so much rebellion today in America is that the children of the “hippie generation”, who rebelled against all authority, have not been taught to respect and obey any authority.

The necessity of teaching obedience to earthly authority is of utmost importance, in fact, it is imperative. The reason it is so necessary for us to learn to obey our earthly authorities is that obedience to God, which is essential for us if we are going to be born again and have a truly successful life, is dependent on it. It has been proven that a person will almost never learn to be submissive and obedient to God, whom he cannot see, if he is not submissive to earthly authorities of which he can see.

God requires of us a simple obedience. In fact, the scripture tell us that obedience is better than sacrifice. God is pleased and we are blessed when we simply obey Him because He is God. We must come to the place that we are willing to obey God and His Word simply because He is God. That is reason enough.