Thursday, March 19, 2009

Learning Obedience

I saw this on the Crossway blog this morning: it immediately hit me (not literally of course):

In the piece by John Owen in Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross Owen answers the question that stumps many a reader of the book of Hebrews when they read that Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).
“Here it says about the Lord Christ that he learned obedience, not that he learned to obey,” Owen writes. “The Lord Christ learned obedience when he experienced it in practice. One special kind of obedience is intended here, namely, a submission to great, hard, and terrible things, accompanied by patience and quiet endurance and faith for deliverance from them. This Christ could have not experience of, except by suffering the things he had to pass through, exercising God’s grace in them all. Thus, Christ learned obedience.”


I can learn to obey - an outward action of duty. But, when I learn obedience - I tend to think that has to do with the heart, the attitude being the action. As I've asked several ladies what they have learned during their marriage, some have said - submission is more than an action, its a heart - line. You can't just "submit" - you have to submit with your heart, actions, head, etc.

What are you just obeying and where do you need to learn the heart of obedience?

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