Daily PresenceSample

When my great niece was eight, she asked her father a theological question: “If a person wants to love Jesus, will they?”

True, this question features an innocent pronoun error with the singular noun person grating numerically against its plural referent they, but don’t dismiss the query on the basis of grammar. Though the child’s question seems naive, we should dig beneath the surface to contemplate the difference between want and obedience. The most important word in the conditional clause leading to the question is wants. We know God will not make us choose to obey. The choice to obey must be ours, willfully.

For example, I may sincerely want to generously support my church’s ministry, understanding that giving joyfully and generously is God’s expressed desire for my stewardship. But if my attitude toward possessions is tight-fisted and self-centered, wanting to support the church easily becomes secondary to my material wants. I’m neither a cheerful nor a generous giver! In this circumstance, wanting to do right is meaningless, and I will certainly expect no reward or blessing for obedience.

As we consider today’s reading, a similar question to my great niece’s question confronted the Israelites in Leviticus 26 when God presented them with two alternatives. On one hand, if they chose to love God and showed care to follow His decrees and obey His command, He would bless their lives with idyllic peace and tranquility. Conversely, if they failed to love and obey God, He would punish their disobedience harshly with “multiplied afflictions” and their “cities turned into ruins.”

What ancient Jew did not want the blessings and rewards of obedience? Only a fool in ancient Israel wanted otherwise! But what were the people’s actions in the successive generations? Their faithfulness was inconsistent, their devotion waxed and waned, their obedience was uneven. Often, they rebelled. And what was their condition by the end of the Old Testament period? They end as defeated, failed, and broken people who had lost God’s favor. Their end shows that merely wanting to love God is worthless, because of this significant difference between want and obedience.

What’s different in the Age of the Church? Nothing, really. My grand niece’s poignant question challenges us to introspection. Of course, we want to love Jesus. Desperately and sincerely!

But will we?

And more importantly, will obedience follow want?