Partial Obedience

"As they were walking along the road, a man said to [Jesus], "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and firds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-bye to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."
- Luke 9:57-62

In the past months I have observed in my own heart, conditions upon which I rest my obedience to Christ. I say, "Lord, if you would just do this, make this thing happen, give me this one thing, fix this one situation, then I would obey you." But, what nonsense! That is NOT obedience. As a teacher, I have found that most times, partial obedience has little more value than complete disobedience.

"'Did you do your homework?"
"Yes."
"Well, where is it?"
"I left it at home."
"Do you know that if you do not bring it to school, you will not receive credit for it?"
"I just didn't feel like looking for it this morning."

Seriously? Partial obedience is wasted effort. I want to challenge myself and my friends with this question: Where in your life do you find yourself placing conditions on your obedience to God? In what part of your soul is partial obedience hindering you from beholding the glory of Jesus Christ?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer discusses true obedience in his book The Cost of Discipleship. Bonheoffer was a German theologian who live during the first part of the twentieth century. When Hitler rose to power, Bonhoeffer moved to the U.S. to escape persecution. However, after a short time he returned to Germany in order to proclaim the truth of the gospel to his people, in hopes that their hearts would be softened, and that they would turn from their heinous ways. Bonhoeffer was arrested in 1943 and executed by the Nazis in 1945. Here is what he has to say concerning obedience to the call of Christ:

"If we would follow Jesus we must make certain definite steps. The first step, which follows the call, cuts the disciple off from his previous existence...To stay in the old situation makes discipleship impossible...The call to follow implies that there is only one way of believing on Jesus Christ, and that is by leaving all and going with the incarnate Son of God...The new situation mus be created, in which it is possible to believe on Jesus as God incarnate; that is the impossible situation in which everything is staked solely on the word of Jesus. Peter had to leave the ship and risk his life on the sea, in order to learn both his own weakness and the almighty power of his Lord. If Peter had not taken the risk, he would never have learned the meaning of faith...Unless a definite step is demanded, the call vanishes into thin air, and if men imagine that they can follow Jesus without taking this step, they are deluding themselves like fanatics...The idea of a situation in which faith is possible is only a way of stating the facts of a case in which the following two propositions hold good and are equally true: only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes."