Obedience and Submission

Obedience is necessary as long as secular goals and worldly lifestyles continue to deviate from God’s will and God’s standards of conduct. Ever since God commanded Adam not to eat the fruit in the Garden of Eden, God has repeatedly set forth commandments that conflict with self-centered and humanistic desires. Therefore, relating with God requires submitting to God’s will and denying self-will. This is an especially prominent theme in Islam, whose name, islam, means “submission.”

Obedience requires sacrifice. When Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but Thy will be done,” he was practicing the way of obedience even to the point of giving his life. Obedience is not about doing God’s will when it is convenient or agreeable to our one’s way of thinking. As Abraham found out when God ordered him to sacrifice his son, obedience can require doing something inconceivably difficult.

Nevertheless, the hardships of obedience and submission are ultimately for our good. God lays out commands to guide humankind on the path of growing to perfection; don’t all parents require their children to follow rules so that they might grow up to be mature and well-adjusted adults? God had that loving purpose in mind when He gave the commandment to Adam and Eve, and that same loving purpose lies within His commandments to us today.