Obedience

What does the word obedience mean?  It is a willful submission to authority. 

What kind of attitude does God want from us in regards to obedience?  Our attitude should be positive because we have a desire to please God.

  To obey God I think is one of our most important things that God will ask us to do.  And to obey with a cheerful heart is even better.  How many times have we had to do something and we did what we had to do but on the inside we were really rebelling?  I'm reminded of the story where the Mom told the little boy to sit down.  The little boy did not want to sit down but he did anyway and he said I may be sitting on the outside but I'm standing on the inside.  Do we do that with God?  We need to be willing to obey God with a cheerful heart because we want to make Him happy.

Let's look at the story in Genesis 6 - 8 where it talks about Noah building the ark.  Noah had never seen it rain before so do you think he felt silly for building the ark?  It is hard to know exactly how long it took Noah to build the ark but some people say anywhere between 80 and 120 years.  It really doesn't matter how long it took to actually build the ark, that is really irrelevant, but to know that Noah was willing to obey God that long and not give up is something we should all try to achieve.  How many times have I felt that God was telling me to do something and then after a few tries I give up because I don't have the patience to continue and I figure that I must have misheard God.  Noah was obedient and never gave up being obedient to God. 

What do you think would have happened if Noah had given up and had not obeyed God when he told him to build the ark?  What kind of consequences would Noah's disobedience have on his family?

It's easier to obey when everyone else is obeying but how do you think Noah felt when maybe his friends and neighbors made fun of him for building the ark and telling everyone there was going to be a flood?  We have to be responsible for our own actions so we need to obey just like Noah did even if everyone else is not.  Let's say you are in class and the teacher has to step out of the room for a minute but she tells everyone to stay in their desks and not talk while she is gone.  It's easy to do that if everyone else is obeying but if everyone else starts talking and getting up and moving around it's very hard not to follow them.  Why would this be hard?  Because lots of times people will make fun of us if we don't follow them and we decide to follow the rules.

How does our obedience affect others?

How does our disobedience affect others?