Christ's School of Obedience

Unless you take the vow of absolute obedience as you enter this class of Christ's school, it will beimpossible for you to make any progress.

The true scholar of a great master finds it easy to render him this implicit obedience, simply because he trusts his teacher. He gladly sacrifices his own wisdom and will in order to be guided by a higher authority.

We need this confidence in our Lord Jesus. He came from heaven to learn obedience and be able to teach it well. His obedience is the treasury out of which the debt of our past is paid and the grace for our present obedience is supplied. In His divine love and perfect human sympathy, in His divine power over our hearts and lives, He invites, He deserves, and He wins our trust.

Jesus touches us through our attachment to and admiration of Him. Through the power of His divine love, His Holy Spirit awakens within us a responsive love. Jesus then awakens our confidence and communicates to us the secret of true success.

As absolutely as we have trusted Him as our Savior who atoned for our disobedience, we can trust Him as a teacher to lead us out of it. Christ is our prophet and teacher. A heart that enthusiastically believes in His power and success as a teacher will, in the joy of that faith, find it easy to obey God. It is Christ's presence with us all day that will be our key to true obedience.

A scholar gives his master just as much of his attendance and attention as he asks. The master determines how much time must be devoted to personal fellowship and instruction.

Obedience to God is a heavenly art. Our human nature is so utterly unfamiliar with it. We must not doubt if obedience does not come all at once, since the path in which the Son Himself learned it was slow and long. Nor must we wonder if we need to spend more time than most believers are ready to give waiting in prayer, meditation, and dependent self-sacrifice. Simply give it.

In Christ Jesus, heavenly obedience has become human again. Obedience has become our birthright and our life breath. Let us cling to our Lord; let us believe and claim His abiding presence. With Jesus Christ who learned obedience as our Savior, and who teaches obedience as our Master, we can live lives of obedience. We cannot study His lesson too seriously. His obedience is our salvation. In Him, the living Christ, we find obedience and partake of it moment by moment.

We must pray to God, asking Him to show us how Christ and His obedience are to be part of our daily lives. We must ask that He will then make us pupils who give Him all of our hearts and all of our time. He will teach us to keep His commandments and live in His love, even as He kept His Father's commandments and lives in His love. Andrew Murray