Obedience ❤️ 2024 – Week 1

2024 week 1 is done & dusted. We have 51 more weeks left, that’s 361 days (at the time of writing this, 05.01.2024). I won’t go into the hours and seconds. You can calculate them if you like.

But what has the first week of 2024 been like for you? It’s been a hectic one for me on the work front – as it’s month/quarter/year end. Not forgetting that it’s my last work week in the role. It has been physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually draining 😪 life goes on and God’s got me ❤️

So Obedience! Why? Well, it is the word that has been floating in my head for the past few weeks since Christmas. You might remember from English classes back in the days at school or simply look up this word on your smart devices, you’ll know that it is the noun for the verb ‘obey’.

Here’s a couple of dictionary definitions, thanks to Google 😊:

compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another's authority. For example, "children were taught to show their parents obedience" (Oxford dictionaries)

1 a) an act or instance of obeying, b) the quality or state of being obedient, for example, children should learn obedience and respect for authority
 
2 a sphere of jurisdiction, especially an ecclesiasitcal or secular dominion, for example, landowners within the king's obedience. (Merriam-Webster dictionaries)

The Christmas story, when told, is more often than not, centred around baby Jesus, His mother Mary, the Shepherds, visiting Magi, and many more. Reading the story again, over the festive period, had me focusing on Joseph, Jesus’s earthside father.

Here is a man whose wife is pregnant out of wedlock, and as a mere mortal, of course, he is wondering and rethinking his choices – what to do? Yet, as we read from Matthew chapter one (1) – Joseph is a wise and empathetic man because he does not want to humiliate Mary publicly. It’s at that point, an angel of God appears to him:

‭‭ [19] Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. [20] But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 

Matthew‬ ‭1:19‭-‬20‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

After the Magi’s visit, again, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, warning of Herod’s plans to harm baby Jesus. Joseph uprooted his young family and moved to a foreign land as instructed by the angel.

‭‭ [13] Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.” [14] When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, [15] and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”
 
Matthew‬ ‭2:13‭-‬15‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

In both situations, I believe Joseph had a choice to do as he was told or do his own thing and ignore God’s divine. The Bible tells us that Joseph chose obedience over disobedience 🙏 Amen! Have you ever wondered what the Christmas story would be like if Joesph had disobeyed God’s plan?

There’s so many stories of disobedience we read about in the Bible – from Adam and Eve to the story of Paul and many more. We also know the consequences of disobedience: Adam and Eve cast out from Garden of Eden, Cain killing his own brother, Moses dying before reaching the Promised Land, Jonah being swallowed by a whale and many more.

In the same way, there’s many stories of obedience – Abraham’s covenant with God to be the father of a great nation, salvation in Zaccheus house, Lazarus’ resurrection and so on.

God has a divine plan for each and every one of us, just as He had for Joseph, whose genealogy from Matthew 1, flows down from King David’s. As such Joseph would have been well versed and brought up in all traditions and laws of the land at that time. These might have been what was causing him doubt and second thoughts about his pregnant wife. Yet when God’s message reached him, he chose to OBEY God.

Joseph and Marys’ acceptance of their call to love, protect, and raise Jesus – earthside, for me, is the penultimate attestation to obedience. Jesus dying on the cross for my sins is the ultimate symbol of Christian obedience.

As Christians, we are called to obey God’s plan, whatever that is and, wherever it may lead. Are we obeying God’s call or following our own paths, totally ignoring what He has divinely planned for us?

That’s the challenge for me in 2024, to walk in obedience! To share and bless others with the gospel of love, joy, hope, peace, and mercy through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and Saviour 🙏. It won’t be easy because I’m not perfect – but I put my trust in God to see me through it all. And I pray the same for each and every person out there ❤️

[24] And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, [25] in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth,
 
II Timothy‬ ‭2:24‭-‬25‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ 

To God be the glory always, Amen 🙏