Call To Commitment: Obedience vs Disobedience

By Joanna Hor

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Ask most Christian youth out over the weekends and you’ll likely get rejected. “Sorry I’m not free. I have youth fellowship on Saturday, church on Sunday and cell group after church. Oh yes, I also meet my youth mentor for Bible study on Wednesday nights.” By society’s standards, any youth involved with that amount of activities would be deemed as “religious”, even “godly”. Many times, it’s the visible things we do that cause others to form impressions about us. “Since he/she spends so much time at church, he/she must be a very dedicated Christian.”

There is nothing wrong with being involved in Christian activities, but what about the other times when we are not?

I knew of a boy who was a ministry head in the Youth Fellowship at his church. In school, he led a prayer group every week with other students. Behind the seemingly perfect picture of his Christian service, he was known for flirting with different girls he met at school. This dichotomy between his personal life and religious life was a real problem, one that many of us are likely to struggle with as well.

As a song aptly describes, “Man sees the outside, but God sees the heart”, Jesus is not concerned about the things that we do to show our piousness but whether we are truly following His will in our daily lives. His use of words like “I never knew you; depart from me” should warn us of the seriousness He attaches to breaking God’s commandments in the Bible. We can deceive man with our outward actions but we cannot deceive God.

(This article is first published in Power Up With The King,
a Bible-study material printed and produced by Singapore Youth For Christ)

Filed under Writing and tagged with Identity, Living for Jesus.