Learning Obedience

“Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” Hebrews 5:8

Now wait a minute! What do you mean Jesus learned obedience? He never disobeyed. We have to learn to obey God, but Jesus always obeyed the commands of God. Jesus “was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin,” (Hebrews 4:15).

That being the case, perhaps Hebrews 5:8 is not just talking about obedience to commands.

What was always Jesus’s primary concern? Doing the will of the Father.

I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.
John 5:30

But that’s easy to say and easy to do if it doesn’t cost anything. When Jesus suffered, particularly on the cross, that’s when putting the Father’s will ahead of his own became difficult.

It was in those times of suffering that Jesus “learned obedience.” Unfortunately, for us it is often in the times of suffering when our obedience falls apart.

When someone defrauds us and we become rightly angry, this kind of suffering often causes us to sin with our tongues, or even in our hearts, wishing evil upon our enemy rather than praying for him or her as is commanded in Matthew 5:44. Anger tempts us to sin through hatred.

When we become unhappy in our marriages, obedience to Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 19:4-9 doesn’t seem as important as it did before. Suffering tempts us to put our own happiness above God’s word.

We might suffer the loss of our investments or our income and be tempted to steal.

In loneliness we might be tempted by pornography. Suffering can tempt us to sin through lust.

When Job and his wife lost everything, she was ready to “curse God and die.”

However, on the other hand, when we persevere in obedience under such circumstances, we make obedience in any future situation much easier. Faithfulness breeds faithfulness. We learn obedience through the things that we suffer.

Because we DO have to learn to obey God’s commands.

“You know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow…” James 1:3-4a NLT

But beyond that, it might serve as a maturity check to examine whether we put the Father’s will ahead of our own when there is no specific command in play. Perhaps you’ve sensed that God’s will is for you to quit smoking, or to start getting up an hour earlier to spend time with Him, or to extend an olive branch to someone who mistreated you.

As we mature, our motivation should be less about keeping ourselves out of hell or even about getting ourselves into heaven. We should develop an ever-increasing desire to do the Father’s will simply because we love and honor Him. That is the example that Christ left for us.

For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. John 6:38

Yes, he followed the commands. But beyond that, he did the Father’s will, even when he could have called more than twelve legions of angels to come to his aid (Matthew 26:53). Even when he could have come down from the cross.

This challenges mature Christians to a whole new level of obedience. It’s so important to know God’s commands and to keep them. But as we grow, the question becomes not just “what is required?” but “what is God’s will?”

Obedience that doesn’t cost anything is easy. It’s usually only when suffering (or the threat of suffering) comes into the picture that we are tempted to disobey. If Jesus had never suffered, he wouldn’t have had a very authentic human experience, and he wouldn’t have really learned what it is about obeying that is sometimes so difficult. So he took on the suffering, he volunteered for it, and “he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.” He always put the Father’s will ahead of his own. As imitators of Christ, we need to do the same.

Dear Father, give me the strength to obey You even when it is difficult, and help me learn to put Your will above my own. I thank You that Jesus was willing to go to the cross, even when he didn’t have to, simply because it was Your will. Help my faith to grow so that I too can be faithful even to the point of death. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

by Christie Cole Atkins