To obey God... by Gary Rose

Cute story; in fact, as I think about this, it could almost be classified as a parable. You know, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. The Dad would be our heavenly Father, we are the boy and the rules are the covenant we live under. Concerning these things, a passage of Scripture came to mind. The Apostle Paul writes…

(2 Corinthians 3:1-7 WEB)

(1) Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as do some, letters of commendation to you or from you?

(2) You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;

(3) being revealed that you are a letter of Christ, served by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone, but in tablets that are hearts of flesh.

(4) Such confidence we have through Christ toward God;

(5) not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God;

(6) who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

In the story, it is obvious that the boy really did not want to do all the things that he agreed (covenanted) with his father to do. He used part of the agreement (Bible Study) to negate another part (getting his hair cut). This parallels The nation of Israel and God as compared to Christians under the New Covenant. God realized that the Jews would never really do what he wanted them to, so He gave them a New Covenant based on complying with his wishes from their heart instead of a long list of rules and regulations they had to obey. God said through the prophet Jeremiah...

Jeremiah 31 (WEB)

[31] Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: [32] not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband to them, says Yahweh. [33] But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: [34] and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Yahweh; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says Yahweh: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.

If we love God, we will be willing do his wishes and not look for ways around what HE has told us to do. Paul praises the Corinthians in his second letter for the attitude with which they obeyed God and this should be an example for all of us.

Only one thing remains to be said:

Are you trying to obey God by rule-keeping (The Ten Commandments) or by God’s Spirit in your heart?