he who does not obey

Been thinking a lot about obedience lately, moreso after a conversation with a brother this weekend. Faithfulness is what most believers aspire to. They pray for more faith. They look to receiving the Good and Faithful Servant label. They view their walk as a journey of faith. Unfortunately, they define faithfulness in a potentially misleading way.

Faithfulness is not merely doing what you say you will do with God. It is not about committing to daily Word-reading and doing it; committing to more prayer and doing it; committing to faithful stewardship of His resources and doing it; committing to service and doing it. That is honorable and God-pleasing, but not faithfulness.

Faithfulness is doing what God tells you to do. Faithfulness is the same thing as obedience. It is about God telling you to treasure His Word, and so you do; Him asking you to seek Him in prayer, and so you do; Him commanding you to be a faithful steward, and so you do; Him telling you to serve, and so you do.

In Matt25, the parable of the talents, the first two slaves are called good and faithful not because they promised something to God and carried it out, but because God entrusted them with a responsibility and they did what they were entrusted to do. This new definition of faithfulness seems somehow perspective-changing, as do all realizations that you are not the center of all things, but God is.