Acts 5:29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!”

This is a principle every disciple of Jesus Christ needs to learn and remember. It’s not that obeying people is inherently wrong. Some people act like it is! Indeed, Paul and Peter – the speaker here – both said we are to obey governmental authorities under normal circumstances. (Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13) It is a very poor witness when Christians play fast and loose with regulations, like speed limits. However, when what people say conflicts with what God says, God is always supreme. Such cases have sadly become much more common in the US in recent years, with outright persecution arising in such places as Colorado. Petty tyrants hate it when people defy them for any reason! (I have felt quite an affinity for Jack Phillips, for example, since we share a name.) There can indeed be severe consequences for disobeying human authorities, as the apostles in this particular story found, but the rewards are always worth it. It is a major problem when we fail to recognize what God has said or is saying in our own situation. It is only when we are assured of God’s will that we are justified in disobeying properly constituted human authorities. With that assurance, however, we are to stand with Christ, just as the 1^st Century believers did, even when it leads to persecution or even martyrdom.

I have never felt persecuted for my faith, and I have a strong dislike for arbitrary regulations. I have long said that Japanese school rules tend to be training in ignoring rules! However, that is a risky position to be in. I am not to be a scofflaw! At the same time, I am to support those who find themselves in conflict with government because of their obedience to Jesus Christ. Refusing to “affirm” something that is blatantly against the Biblical pattern for sexuality, for example, is something we all should emulate. The social consequences, at the very least, can be severe, and we must always speak the truth in love, but none of that is an excuse to not obey God. Slogans like “Love is love” horribly distort the clear Biblical pattern, and I’m not to succumb to “going with the flow” of societal opinion. I am to love people with Jesus’ love, that accepts them as they are but never leaves them as they are. We had a young man who had attended our church several times as a high school student, and when he came back after several years, he told us he had been to Thailand for “gender reassignment” surgery. He asked me if God would accept him as a woman, and I could only tell him that God accepted him as a person, but that God had not made any mistakes in His original creation. I think we were genuinely loving toward him, both before and after his surgery, but lying is not love, whatever people think.

Father, thank You for Your incredible grace. Help me be an instrument of that grace, but never as an excuse for violating Your laws. May I always walk in full obedience to You, whatever the consequences, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!