.......Continuation

The sin of rebellion in the heart of man is the manifestation of disobedience. It may be manifested in: “ reluctance to submit”; frowning even at duty, a quiet demand of reward and recognition for services rendered; a persistent self defense, argument about one’s position and insistence on one’s will. Disobedience sometimes hides under the matter of “reason”. Disobedience insists on doing only the thing that is reasonable to him. He keeps asking, “Why must I do this? Convince me on why this is what I must do?” The entire concept of self-life is the spirit of disobedience. Delayed obedience is disobedience in a measure. Pressurized obedience is disobedience needing an external push. Disobedience will appear to be obedience when it tallies with the self will. Every time you seek to do your own will (even if no one challenges it) it is the life of disobedience in action. Disobedience sometimes is a bargained obedience or conditional obedience. Each time God looks at a man in consideration for spiritual leadership, Hechecks how much of the life of disobedience has been removed! “A broken and a contrite heart, which trembles at My Word” is the man He looks unto. This is nothing but a life that is emptied of the spirit and life of disobedience.

Disobedience does not bear a broken heart. It does not tremble at God’s Word. It rather prepares to resist, to argue and to remain firm at its own choice and course of action. Authority cannot be delegated to a rebel at heart. Leadership is a delegated authority to serve others. It cannot be vested on a man who is set in his own ways. He cannot suspend his own knowledge to adopt, embrace and adapt to another person’s knowledge. This is why very few persons are qualified to bear genuine authority for God among men. Though Jesus was the Son of God, once He took upon Himself the form of a man, and had appeared in human nature, it became necessary for Him to learn obedience, to prove obedience and to perfect obedience. What made Him different was not His dressing. It was not His miracles. It was His obedience. Even when obedience was not rational, He obeyed. Obedience for Jesus meant submission to God’s authority and all delegated authority in everything. It meant waiting to be told where to go, what to do and what to say. It meant He would never speak His own word. He never moved or acted from His own personal will. He acted only upon instructions, as He could of His own do nothing.

The question God immediately asked Adam in Eden was “Who told you?” Who is the source of your knowledge and information? Who told you to do what you have done or are doing? This question of “who told you?” is still the question God asks each time a man acts independently of Him and of His leading. Jesus in all His earthly life was able to say ... “For I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent Me He gave me commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting; whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.” Jn 12:49-50.

This is the extent of His own life of obedience; total acceptance to be subject and submissive to God. It is the release of His own personality to only further the course of God. He put aside His own ideas and only executed regularly and always (not just occasionally) the thoughts and will of His Father. He did it joyfully and with deep conviction. He said, “And I know that His (My Father’s) commandment is life everlasting”. He accepted God’s wisdom as final and good for life. He did not obey with grudges and murmurings.

Disobedience manifests itself through murmurings. A murmur is a reaction of the heart, challenge of the authority where you are not bold to openly challenge or walk contrary to it. It is equal to rebellion; as if you picked a gun to shoot at the man who is insisting on your doing what is not from

your heart. He did not open His mouth. “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearer is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment...”  Isaiah 53:7-8.

Note this very well. He did nothing to warrant such a treatment. He was only being trained in the life of obedience. Many suppose they are obedient because all they are asked to do is reasonable and rational to psychology. It is glorious, it attracts human applause. But disobedience will be obedient to anything it sees will be of profit to it. It will obey gladly whatsoever can so highlight his own ability. “...Because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief...” Isaiah 53:9, 10.

Can you imagine this? Yet despite His holiness, despite His past obedience and submission; it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; it pleased God to put Him to grief. Why? God was training His obedience, so He can qualify for the highest name that must be obeyed in heaven and on earth and underneath the earth. Obedience is submission even if there is reason not to do so! It is accepting to be used to boost the ego of another, even at the expense of personal convenience.

Jesus went all the way in obedience, unto death, even the cruel death of the cross, just for God to satisfy Himself and fulfill His own pleasure, and to prove a point. A point that “I have a Son who would obey Me implicitly and completely, even if it means dying just to do My will.” He declared at the point of the cross: “...for the prince of this world cometh; and has nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Rise let us go hence.” This is His own obedience; He learnt it. He grew in it. He perfected in obedience, as He had to go through different facets of it. The training in obedience is to prove Satan and the rebellious wrong. It is to confirm that God can be our God, not because He cajoled us to submit by the good things He gives us. Not also that He threatened us into submission by the force of His power. Jesus had all the rights to defend Himself. He could have demanded for legions of angels to fight for Him and they would be at His beck and call. But He chose the path of obedience and released Himself to be molested by unworthy hands. He said to Peter “Put thy sword back into its sheath: the cup which My Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11 KJV).

“And behold, one of them, which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? Matt. 26:51-54.

He saw it as the cup of obedience. It is when you voluntarily lay down your right to defend yourself and get exonerated from the treatment of an impostor especially when you sense this is “the Father’s will”. He would not even indulge in the opportunity of prayer to evade what was clearly written concerning Him in the Scriptures. His own resolve was to fulfill all that God had written and designed concerning Him, even if it meant suffering. He picked Judas Iscariot, though He knew him to be a traitor, just to obey His Father and to fulfill every Scripture. He would not drop Judas, though he stole regularly from the purse, lest it made obedience unto the death of the cross less possible for Him

It was not just one or several acts of obedience that God looked for in His Son. He looked for a life of continuous, continual and perpetual obedience; obedience unto God in anything and everything, in any place and at every time. This is still what He looks for to see in every man He brings into leadership position. The height and scope of leadership a man can stand and walk in, is dependent on the “perfection or maturing of the life of obedience” that he has attained. Paul spoke of when your “obedience is complete”. It is clear that God is looking for total, complete, matured and universal life of obedience: obedience to the great and yet obedience to the least of saints, whom God has given a ministry to discharge towards us.

A man’s ministry is the authority God has delegated to him. Receiving ministry from such of His least men may just be a test of our own obedience. He may not stand out here to receive and collect our obedience. If He does, most of us will rush to give Him more than what He demanded. But several times He delegates His authority to ordinary folks. He seems to say “the obedience due to me, carry it and give it to that man or woman,who will receive it and use it for men.” True obedience does not look at the face, the height, and the status of the recipient. He only submits to all men in the fear of God. It may be your husband or just a young man in the fellowship. They are mere delegated recipients of our obedience. When we lift up our hands to the invisible but immortal God in adoration, but we shrugged our shoulders in resistance to a brother or sister who has been given a ministry in our lives; we do nothing but mock God! Jesus proved obedience to all. He was subject to Joseph and Mary, though He knew the Scriptures more than them. He was humble and submissive to them though they had no power to change water to wine.

“And even though Jesus was God’s Son, He had to learn from experience what it was like to obey, when obeying meant suffering. It was after He had proved Himself perfect in this experience that Jesus became the giver of eternal salvation to all those who obey Him.”  Heb 5:8-9 (Living Bible).

Do note again this Scripture. Read it carefully over and over again. It was after (not before) Jesus had proved Himself perfect in this experience that Jesus “became (He was not that earlier), the Giver, the Author, the Source of eternal salvation to all those who obey Him,” though He was born the Savior. He was even called Jesus (the Savior from sin) at birth.... He would not actually become the savior (not just by name but by life and in actual practice) until He had proved Himself perfect in this experience of obedience. This was the way Jesus went. It was the way of obedience. He did not become our Savior arbitrarily. He met God’s own condition. He had the baptism and He drank the cup.

“Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death; and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors” Isa 53:12.

‘The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things unto His hand’ Therefore doth My Father love me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me; but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. No Man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father.” John 3:35; 10:17-18.

“If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” John 15:10.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name. Phil 2:9.

As you look closely to these Scriptures, they all primarily point to Jesus, our LORD. You will also discover that there is ‘therefore’ and a ‘because’ (or reason) for who He is and what place God has placed Him today. God is faithful. God follows principles. He is not disorderly. If He sees again what He looks for in a man to be placed in His Eden of Service and spiritual delegation in you, He will do it again. Right away, God will do it!

He did it for Adam until the same iniquity that pushed Satan out of God’s service was found in Adam. Every measure of brokenness unto obedience as a lifestyle brings a measure of spiritual authority to a man’s life. If the measure of obedience grows, God also expands your scope of spiritual leadership. This kind of leadership does not come by the official appointment. It is not vested in vestures. It is vested in your life. This is the life of obedience you have grown and perfected in. Authority over demons is also hinged on this matter. Resurrection life that lifts you up from among men, into a place where your life can assert influence on others (without being a tyrant) also comes as you drink this cup.