Day Three: Imperfect Obedience Is Valuable
Have you ever done something for someone and then a part of you wanted recognition or to be noticed for what you've done. Maybe you made a meaningful gift for someone and wondered if they would instagram it? Or maybe you hoped that attractive guy/girl at church saw you hold that door for that older couple passing in front of you? It's in our nature to even when we are doing good things want some recognition for what we've done. It's annoying how those thoughts can creep up on you and you wish you could just do something nice for someone without even caring if people saw. I don't know about you but I get frustrated by the times I'll want recognition. It's like my deep motive was to help the person or give them the gift to show them I care but there's that little bit of me that's like"OoO maybe people will see this about me" And it's like "gah why can't I just be 100% selfless and never think of myself" well, because I'm human.
Today as I read some of Kevin Deyoung's The Hole in our Holiness, I came across the following statement: "But God does not expect our good works to be flawless in order for them to be good. If God only accepted perfect obedience from his children, the Bible would have nothing good to say about Job, or David or Elizabeth or anyone else except Jesus".
See, I think what this statement is saying is that the things we do to honor God matter even when they aren't perfect. Colossians 1:9-10 states, And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
We are a work in progress as I mentioned earlier. There will be moments were we do things with this mindset that we want to honor God but our humanness will creep in want some glory and psych ourselves out and we will see what we've done as meaningless or we will be frustrated that for a split second our minds even went there so we wonder if we should even bother. We should though because he still values our obedience. Many of the believers in the Bible were far from perfect, yet they were obedient to God despite their flaws and God honored their obedience.
Obedience to God even though we may not always do it perfectly, is valuable to Him because we are still seeking to obey Him.
Today as I read some of Kevin Deyoung's The Hole in our Holiness, I came across the following statement: "But God does not expect our good works to be flawless in order for them to be good. If God only accepted perfect obedience from his children, the Bible would have nothing good to say about Job, or David or Elizabeth or anyone else except Jesus".
See, I think what this statement is saying is that the things we do to honor God matter even when they aren't perfect. Colossians 1:9-10 states, And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
We are a work in progress as I mentioned earlier. There will be moments were we do things with this mindset that we want to honor God but our humanness will creep in want some glory and psych ourselves out and we will see what we've done as meaningless or we will be frustrated that for a split second our minds even went there so we wonder if we should even bother. We should though because he still values our obedience. Many of the believers in the Bible were far from perfect, yet they were obedient to God despite their flaws and God honored their obedience.
Obedience to God even though we may not always do it perfectly, is valuable to Him because we are still seeking to obey Him.
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