Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Obedience
- Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity. Our true identity comes only from our Father.
What a great
chapter through which we can look at the faithful followers of God through the
lens of obedience. What I love about
this chapter is that it is incredibly real.
It shows us a spiritual and political leader much in the same light as
we saw back with David.
For example,
look at the first two-thirds of this chapter.
Time and time again we hear that Josiah was obedient to the Law as it
was written by Moses. Josiah knew what
to do, how to do it, and even when to do it!
He followed the written word quite literally to the letter! He was an incredibly obedient leader in the
things that were written and clearly dictated by God’s Word. This is how it should be!
On the other
hand, look at the last third of this chapter.
In these verses we hear about Josiah’s stubbornness. He goes out against Necho, Pharaoh of
Egypt. Necho even gives him a reason to
turn around. Do you hear his
reason? He is doing the will of God, and
doing it in a hurry! Yet, Josiah
continues to oppose him. Josiah clearly
makes the wrong choice in a moment of disobedience. Unfortunately for Josiah, this moment of disobedience
also costs him his life.
What can we
learn from this chapter about obedience?
We can learn that we should be able to get the things right that are
specified in God’s Word. There isn’t any
excuse for getting those things wrong.
But when it comes to the gray areas in life where we are making
decisions based on what we think is correct as we apply God’s Word to our life,
the reality is that we are going to make mistakes. We are going to make the incorrect choice and
that choice will lead to disobedience.
All of the good leaders did it; we will do it to. The trick is to live humbly and repent when
we find ourselves walking in disobedience.
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