Tied Up In Nots<\/a>, it is too easy to get distracted by only looking at one side of things. Perhaps I am not disobedient very often, but does that make me obedient?<\/p>\n As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.<\/strong> (Matt 4:18-22, NIV)<\/p>\nWhat really strikes me or, to be more exact, hits me in the face about this passage is the suddenness of obedience. The “at once” and the “immediately”. \u00a0There is no discussion, no pause, no packing up, no farewells. Jesus tells the four men to follow him, and they do. I get a picture of Jesus walking along the shore, turning his head and saying, “Follow me” without even pausing in his walk. He was in no doubt that they would follow, and they were in no doubt that they should. He expected obedience; they gave it.<\/p>\n
How do I react to “Follow me”? Am I obedient and do it immediately, or am I disobedient by not being immediately <\/em><\/strong>obedient?<\/p>\nHow about you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don’t know how young I was when I was first disobedient. I am sure that as a baby I showed signs of the disobedience to come – perhaps it was just turning my head away to refuse to eat the food on the spoon in front of me, or perhaps I just refused to do something that I had been told to do. But was that real disobedience, or was it just the case that I didn’t understand the words? As a toddler, I almost certainly refused to do something, even though I fully understood the words. But was that real disobedience, or was it just the case that I didn’t understand the rules? By the time I was at school, I understood both the language and the rules, and I know I was disobedient on many occasions, and punishment followed accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3,14,17,413,36,38,48,55],"class_list":["post-2032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","tag-bibleblogs","tag-blameless","tag-christ","tag-christian","tag-forgiveness","tag-god","tag-jesus","tag-lord","category-5","description-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfWaLo-wM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7424,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2023\/06\/23-lashings-of-lashes\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":0},"title":"23 – Lashings of Lashes","author":"Robert Pender","date":"10\/06\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=\"7426\" img_size=\"full\" alignment=\"center\"][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]There are a lot of things happen when you get chemotherapy, but everyone is different and it all depends on the recipe of drugs which they put into you for your particular cancer. Most people tend to think that hair loss is going to happen, and most\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7182,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2022\/12\/11-held-and-healed\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":1},"title":"11 – Held and Healed","author":"Robert Pender","date":"03\/12\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=\"7183\" img_size=\"full\" alignment=\"center\"][\/vc_column][vc_column][vc_column_text] Held Well, that has been a bit of a week! Last weekend, I probably did a bit much. It's hard to tell, to be honest. In August I was as fit as a fiddle, now there are a few strings broken. I know I can't do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6120,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2021\/01\/lets-start-at-the-very-beginning\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":2},"title":"Let’s start at the very beginning","author":"Robert Pender","date":"29\/01\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]You might not agree with what I'm going to say, but that in itself will just prove my point. Let me begin by saying that I disagree. In fact, we all disagree. We disagree about politics, about religion, about football teams, about diets, fashion, music, money. We disagree about everything\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bible"","block_context":{"text":"Bible","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/bible\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7329,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2023\/03\/19-words-mean-everything\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":3},"title":"19 – Words Mean Everything","author":"Robert Pender","date":"12\/03\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"If you have been following my blog you will know that in November last year I was diagnosed as having terminal cancer. In episode 8 of this series, I described how the oncologist told me that if I did not get chemotherapy I would have two or three months to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pender.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/words.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pender.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/words.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pender.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/words.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pender.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/words.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pender.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/words.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7389,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2023\/05\/to-buy-or-not-to-buy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":4},"title":"21 – To buy or not to buy","author":"Robert Pender","date":"07\/05\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=\"7390\" img_size=\"large\" alignment=\"center\" style=\"vc_box_shadow_3d\" css_animation=\"slideInLeft\"][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=\"\"]To buy or not to buy, that is the question. But before we get to the answer, it would be a good idea to let you now how I actually got to the question. The last few weeks have had a few problems laced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7406,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2023\/06\/22-questions-questions\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":5},"title":"22 – Questions, Questions","author":"Robert Pender","date":"01\/06\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"So, did I buy the turbo trainer, or didn't I? Well, the answer to that is easy - it's yes. Yes to both questions!","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}