Obedience is often seen as an ugly- maybe even a scary- word. There is good reason for that.
None of us are eager to follow the orders of another. We have seen people with selfish intentions demand obedience of someone else in a way that hurts the one doing it. Whether it is an 19th century african woman being told that she (and her people) was made by God to be a slave or a 21st century over-bearing boss who relishes his position over his “subordinates,” demanding obedience can be a power play.
Whether it is because we are fearful of being pressed to do what would hurt us or because we would rather stomp our feet defiantly than to do some good another person tells us we should do, we are still people who will obey.
One moment we may defiantly refuse to obey someone in authority in our lives because we won’t be told what to do, and the next moment we will gladly obey the selfish desires that reside in our chests. Those selfish desires become the very master that we try to escape from.
It isn’t a matter of whether we will obey or not, but who we will obey.
In Acts 5, the followers of Jesus are given a choice: to obey the religious rulers of their day and turn their back on Jesus or to obey the heart of their Leader and Savior and joyfully disobey the ruler’s commands.
Their response: “We must obey God rather than men.”
Where the religious rulers tried to coerce the apostles into obedience and they had to make a choice, their Savior gave them a compelling reason to obey Him rather than the Sanhedrin: a “knowing” that the God of their ancestors loved them so deeply that He sent his Son to become obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Knowledge of God’s true heart gives people - gives US!- real freedom to follow him (and not man) with our whole heart.