IS "OBEY" ANOTHER FOUR LETTER WORD

Yesterday I had a close call.  On a quiet, back country road, I pulled up to a stop sign with no other cars around.  I came almost to a full stop, but not quite.  I coasted through.  Out of nowhere, there appeared a police car in my rear view mirror.  My heart jumped.  Where did he come from?  Did he see my bogus stop?  Is he going to pull me over?  What can I say to him to mitigate my civil sin?  As it turned out, I kept going and he turned the corner.  Whew!  What a relief.  There was no ticket, no accountability, only cheap grace without consequences.  

My heart settled back down.  But my mind remained in a high gear.  I had a cognitive workout.  All the way home my mind rambled over things like obedience, accountability, faithfulness to civil covenants.  I reflected on a life of rolling through stop signs, always intentionally driving 10% over the speed limit, just enough to not get stopped.  If the speed limit were 60 mph, I would push it to 66 mph, but no further.  I then thought, one’s whole life could be like that, only sinning a little, enough to not really get caught.  Is that true?  Do I speed just a little, coast through the stop signs just a little, bend the truth to those I love just a little, fudge my taxes just a little, pad my resume’ just a little, and so on?  It can be a way of life, a life of cumulative sin.

My narrow escape from a ticket yesterday made me think how sin is cumulative.  One does not have to be an extortionist or murderer to be deep in sin.  The small sins add up.  Quicksand is slow, but effective.  Sin is sin and it is an abomination to God.  He cannot and will not have presence in the midst of sin.  He expects faithfulness and obedience to his commands and directives foremost of which is to love the Lord with all our heart and our neighbor as well as we love ourselves.  Jesus made it crystal clear:  “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love . . .”  (John 15:10).  Obedience is not something that is easily embraced at this time and in the present culture.  I remember saying to my kids when they were young, "If you love me, you will obey me."  The same goes with God.  If we love Him, we will show it in obedience. The Word of God is clear.  If we truly love the Lord we will obey his commands, and be better for it.  We will repent (turn about face) and walk in the same direction as Christ following him.

I confess that yesterday may not be the last time I coast through a stop sign.  If I do in the future, it will be because I was not paying enough attention to my driving.  As the song goes, “I want to live right that God may use me, at any time or any where.”  That means doing my part to obey civil laws and keep my covenant that I made when society gave me a drivers license.  More importantly, it means being faithful to walk every moment of every day in the same direction with Christ and not turn back.  Obey need not be just another four letter word.  It can be our means of showing God that we take His word and His love seriously.