To be doggedly obedient

As I sat in Sunday evening service, I felt increasingly convicted that I shouldn’t have brought those John Piper books during his recent two-day $5.00-a-book
(-and-Bible) sale.

Awwww, maaaaaannn! I thought I had pushed that guilt deep enough it wouldn’t surface until at least the next similar temptation I encounter.

Alas, as our minister pleaded on, exhorting his flock to be totally surrendered to God – that niggling thought kept rising: “You are under authority to your husband, by the sanction of God to such order in the family in His Word, and you told your husband that you wouldn’t buy anything he doesn’t expect from you – nothing but food and clothing for your daughter. When you said anything this did not exclude John Piper and other books for religious edification, no matter how much it seems ok at the time. And did it really seem ok at the time?”

This was particularly annoying since just that morning I had nodded wholeheartedly (more whole headedly) in agreement throughout the pastor’s entire Sunday School lesson on why Christians submitting to all God-sanctioned authority in Scripture – in family, church, and government – is necessary.

Yup! There I sat – Christian in church, in word, in deed – oh, except for that little matter of those books I wanted.

Hey, they were John Piper books! On sale!

Sigh.

I knew in my heart that I must confess this to my husband. And slowly I began to realize that it was ultimately (and not just ultimately, but primarily) against God whom I had sinned.

This is a part of Scriptural understanding that had heretofore long evaded me, but perhaps I am slowly beginning to understand:

“Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment." – Psalm 51:4

Although it was my husband to whom I promised not to spend beyond his expectations and that of my own initiative, it was the Lord who set my husband’s authority over me – and against God and His standards I transgressed. Because God set this authority to be the rule of my home, it is He Who I disobeyed.

Interestingly, even before I confessed to my husband, my father and I were conversing in the kitchen when I mentioned how it has been a difficult transition for me – having been in the workforce since high school. Even though my husband and I have long been like-minded in spending habits, frugality and aversion to debt, we each always equally had incomes, and therefore, spent freely (not liberally, but freely – without needing to check in with one another). As I explained to my dad that now as a stay-at-home (hoping-to-homeschool) mom, it’s been a transition for me to check with my husband on issues related to spending.

My dad wisely noted that even when both spouses work and bring in an income, that’s how it should be.

I confess that I’m leaning toward that understanding as well – but having been raised by an independent working mother and having worked for decades myself in a culture that promotes self-reliance and shuns submission, I didn’t think much about surrender or accountability to my spouse. We were just always like-minded and that was sufficient for both of us. But God is changing me.

It seems like it’s taken me a very long time (only 46 years, actually, and counting) to get this through my thick skull, but I’m beginning to realize that whatever I am to be – to obey – to do – it is all as unto the Lord. And more than as unto - it is unto my Lord.

Whatever I do or am that is not in line with God’s Word, it is against Him and Him alone because it is His Lordship (and I say and I mean that in all due reverence, not as Free Grace uses the term) – it is His Lordship to which I am beholden.

I am so because I was bought with a price. I am no longer my own. But every day that I awaken and begin my day with my own thoughts before submitting to Him, I thereby choose to feed the old man and quench the Spirit who sealed me as a purchase of my Lord.

In so doing, I am more prone to walk in the flesh that day and serve her, succumbing to wants and desires that although seemingly innocuous are treacherous because they deny His Lordship over my life.

I am beginning to see this as an extremely dangerous place to be – saved without submission, born again but not broken, forgiven but still feeding the flesh. I think it venomous.

If I choose not to walk, talk, live and breathe 100 percent – total and absolute – daily surrender and obedience to my Lord first, then I sin against Him and Him alone, maybe trampling or hurting others in my wake, but ultimately and primarily rubbing (flavorless) salt in His wounds, missing the mark, and grieving the Spirit. And to what end, but my own? A dead end indeed.

Christian, the smallest infraction that you know is serving self before your Lord is rebellion and therefore not small.

I am convinced that there is no Christian growth or sanctification without repentance and obedience.

There is no Savior without Lord.