Obedience—'On Earth as it is in Heaven!'

11/4/2001

Sunday Afternoon, November 4, 2001

Legendary coach Vince Lombardi’s former Green Bay Packer football players came to understand a few things as they became back-to-back world champions. With Lombardi, all of these years later, they are renowned for the growth and victories on and off the field, in such fundamental issues as respect, authority, gift, leadership, teamwork, and each player fulfilling their role.

Vince and his players were often questioned about the foundation of their Hall of Fame success. While speaking at a business conference in Dayton, Ohio, Lombardi relayed this story:

In that common quest to understand the root of their greatness, one of Lombardi’s players was asked, “So what’s it like to work for Vince Lombardi?”

The man answered, “Well, I’ll tell you in a nutshell. When Lombardi turns to us in the locker room and tells us to sit down, I don’t even look for a chair.”

Ohhhh, for the days when men and women and children understood such things. How can we EVER know God and begin to know His Wisdom, when we have learned to depend SO much on our own opinions and feelings, thoughts and personal experiences? We are very clever in this generation at finding ways to justify our personal rights to be “gods” and “kings” and sovereign vessels within ourselves, without calling it that. The battle is as old as the Garden of Eden, if you will ponder what took place there, and cost Adam and Eve so very much. We are still making that same mistake, and continue too often to live in the days and ways of Adam and Eve, Cain, Korah, Ananias and Sapphira, Diotrephes, and Laodicea.

When God has spoken, through His Voice, in ways or people of His current choosing, do we say, “When God tells us to sit down, I don’t even look for a chair!”??

Oh, of course there are “abuses” “out there.” Sure. But what a great hiding place for your flesh that can be, eh?! You know. So, will you so easily, because of someone else’s mistakes, allow satan to cause you to disobey God?! Do we rationalize, defend, procrastinate, make excuses, and set ourselves on the Throne claiming “freedom in Christ,” when it is truly unwillingness to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,” and a refusal to bend our knee to Jesus’ Call on our lives in the details and decisions and living circumstances? Often, this “freedom” we demand for ourselves is instead the slavery and deception of self-life and pride. Wouldn’t it be helpful in our relationship with Father and our brothers and sisters, if we just admitted this is in our hearts, and softened? Oh, what a precious and peaceful existence this brings in His Church. Those who have never seen the reality of Acts 2:42-47 in the Life of the Body of Christ around them day in and day out, decade in and decade out will universally have to admit that this has been a problem for them, and part of the root of what Jesus is therefore unable to Build around them.

As the Master has taught us to pray: “On earth, as it is in Heaven!”… Let’s LIVE that way, together! That IS how it is in Heaven when Father speaks! Can you imagine Gabriel, Michael, Moses, or Elijah wandering around looking for a convenient time or way to respond to Yahweh’s current Command or Desire? : ) “On earth, as it is in Heaven!” SO BE IT!

Together let’s SHOUT and live, in our everyday lives together, “When God tells us to sit down, none of us even look for a chair!”