John 15:7-11.  To obey or not to obey the Lord God--this has been and is the crucial question for every human being.  Obedience as opposed to disobedience is a life-and-death issue.  God has given humankind the  power of choice:  the choice of obedience leads to God's promised blessing of life; the choice of disobedience leads to curse, judgment, and death.

   Jesus says in John 15:9-10, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain in my love.  If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love.”  We all have the choice to remain in the love of Jesus or walk out away from His love.  But what does it mean to not “remain in His love”?  One of the members of one of our Bible studies gave this example of our walking away from the love of Christ:  It is like an umbrella that the father holds over his children.  This umbrella represents the protection that a father provides for his child.  But any of his children can leave the covering of the umbrella anytime they like, and by doing so they are walking away from the protection of the father.  That does not mean the father does not love the child anymore, but by the child moving away out of defiance, the child is choosing to leave the protection and find his own way.  The father cannot be the protector he needs to be.  But if the child leaves home with the father's blessing, the father can till the ground and plant good seed for the child to keep growing in the Lord, thus providing protection.  If that child leaves out of defiance, it is without the father's blessing, he is moving away from the father's love and, therefore, suffering the consequences that come from being out of the father's protection.  What do you think it means to not remain in Jesus' love?

    What does it mean to us to be obedient?  As a child I can remember the many times that I was disobedient to my parents.  Almost all cases ended up with my being punished, whether a spanking, grounding, or some other means of punishment.  Of course, the severity of disobedience dictated the severity of punishment, but any way you look at it, it was love that brought about the punishment.  At the time I thought I was most certainly the most abused child in the small town I lived in, if not the world, and I was real good about feeling sorry for myself.

    Now through my years of growth, and having children of my own, I now see how extremely important obedience is.  Plain and simple, if I was obedient, my day went good, if I was disobedient my day was not so good.  I don't know why I never figured it out, except maybe a defiant streak in me.  (Which is a study in itself.)   As I studied this subject I started thinking, what would my life be like today?  Would it be any different?  Would I have a different outlook, a different job, a different family, a better education, and on and on, I will never know or care to dwell on that idea but I thought of it because of two great men and a boy who were obedient regardless of the cost.

    The first is Moses, because of his and Aaron's disobedience, God told him, “You will not bring this community into this land I gave them” (Num 20 :12).  But Moses was still faithful in leading the people to the promised land.  God even let Moses see the land from Mount Nebo but did not let him cross over into it (Dt 34:1-5).  He even died there, never getting to step foot in the Promised Land.  What got me was his continual faithfulness, rather than saying, “I’m not going to get to the Promised Land, so why try.”  Are we able to be obedient even when we know we will not get a reward?

    The other is the great man of God, Abraham (Gen 22:1-14).  I just had to think what if Abraham would have disobeyed, would all of history be different?  I don't know about history, but for Abraham I could say with confidence that his life probably would have been different.  It would be a good guess to say that Isaac's life would most definitely be different, as well.

    Do you think maybe Isaac had some issues?  Having to cut the wood, hike all the way to a mountain unknown to him, carry all the wood up the mountain, while his father just carried the fire (Gen 22:6), and then asking “we have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering.” (verse 7)--Now comes the incredible faith of Abraham, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.”  (verse 8)--After Abraham built the altar and arranged the wood on it, he then bound his son Isaac, laid him on top of the wood, reached out and took the knife to slay his son.  An angel called out to Abraham saying not to lay a hand on the boy.  Abraham then looked up to find a ram caught in the thicket by its horns.  I’ve always thought of the greatness of Abraham but it took obedience on the part of Isaac as well.  After all Isaac could have fought being tied up and put on the altar, but clearly he was obedient to his father, as well as to God--honoring his father by trusting what his father was doing was of God.

    Abraham had to have great knowledge of the Lord to be able to hear and do the Father’s will, and to go through the events he did.

     Because of the obedience of Abraham and Isaac, Isaac was also blessed with the promise God made to Abraham (Gen 26: 2-5).  Abraham was blessed with living to a young age of 175 years (Gen 25:7).

    By Abraham’s faith he received the promises by passing the test (Heb 11:17-40) and by faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau.  This is called the ripple effect.  We have all heard the ripple effect story--when you throw a pebble into a pond, water rings ripple out from the point of entry and get wider and wider until they reach shore, which is their destination.  If we are obedient the blessings ripple out from us, touching lives as far as only God knows.  It only takes that one little act of obedience on our part to start the ripple effect.

    I can name names and situations in which my disobedience hindered the blessings someone else should have received.  That is not to say that God could not have been able to use someone else to gain the same results, but it is to say that I have missed out on that blessing that God had in store for me.  We do need to understand that our disobedience not only affects ourselves, but others as well, and this leads into selfishness.