Jeremiah 7:21-26 (HCSB)
21 This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves,
22 for when I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offering and sacrifice.
23 However, I did give them this command: Obey Me, and then I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must follow every way I command you so that it may go well with you.
24 Yet they didn’t listen or pay attention but followed their own advice and according to their own stubborn, evil heart. They went backwards and not forward.
25 Since the day your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent all My servants the prophets to you time and time again.
26 However, they wouldn’t listen to Me or pay attention but became obstinate; they did more evil than their ancestors.
John 10:27 calls us the sheep that hears and follows the master’s voice. The voice of the Lord is all over the scriptures, but do we recognise it and obey Him? obedience is an integral part of the Christian faith, in fact, Leviticus 8:4 says we are to practise and obey God’s laws and status because He is God. That’s all! Obeying God’s voice is not a choice but a necessary requirement to our Christian walk.
Do we obey the Lord’s voice through the scriptures or through His servants? If we are to actively take up our crosses as stipulated by Matthew 16:24, we must walk in obedience.
Obeying God’s voice is not occasional or according to our emotions or availability, it should be a way of life, no matter how inconveniencing or difficult it may be, like in Jeremiah 1:17.
God’s command in vs 23 is simple “obey my voice,” He didn’t ask us, just as He didn’t ask the Israelites for sacrifices but obedience; obey His voice by walking in the way of righteousness; through this, God will acknowledge us as His people, and He, our God.
Dutiful is another word for obedience, it is an obligation to obey God, just as Jesus fulfilled His duty to the Father by dying on the cross in Philippians 2:8, so is our duty to submit to God’s commands and obey His voice. As believers, obedience means to comply with everything God commands. It is our duty to say exactly what the Lord puts in our mouth like Balaam in Numbers 23:12.
If we obey the voice of God in searching and keeping His word, He will keep us; if we obey the word according to Joshua 1:8, then God would cause all our ways to be prosperous.
God says in Isaiah 30:21 that we will hear His command when we walk in the way of righteousness, the operative word here is “hear,” we listen for and hear God’s voice leading and directing our steps. His voice may only be audible to our spiritual ears, but His leading is real and practical.
We look at our lives and sometimes decide which part to give to God and which to keep back, we obey the Lord’s voice in some areas and ignore Him in others, especially when it doesn’t suit our plans.
Some of us would most likely disobey God’s voice and obey man’ if certain issues are at stake, but God commands us in Deuteronomy 26:16 to obey all His ordinances wholeheartedly, to be careful to follow them with all our hearts and all your souls.
Like Peter and John in Acts 4:19, who were commanded not to mention Jesus’s name, they took their lives in their hands as they could have been jailed, stoned, or put to death but they choose to obey the voice of God and not of man.
like Peter and John, we are also induced to obey
worldly prudence and secular interests more than following the dictates of eternal truth and justice. Is it right to obey men contrary to the command and will of God? When God commands us to speak, dare we hold our tongue? God is the highest authority, we must therefore endeavour to obey His voice always.
Shalom