Obedience is not the end goal of Faith.
Obedience is not the end goal of faith. Faith is the end goal of faith.
I often hear that our obedience to God is how we should express the outflow of trust, love, and faith in our God. I believe this is accurate. If we believe not only God's words but that God's word is good and good for us, we will act accordingly in obedience to His word. Not only that, when we love the Lord, it is not a burden to walk in accordance with that word.
That being said, obedience is not the end goal of having faith in God. The end goal of faith is faith.
This may seem simple. Yet, I see so many college students subconsciously living the false narrative that obedience is the end goal of faith in God. Why is this so problematic? It leads to students thinking things like, “If I just had enough faith, then I would be able to do (fill in the blank) .” This, in turn, leads to cycles of guilt and shame about not being able to do enough for God and not feeling like they have enough faith in God at all.
Shame leads us to hiding, and hiding leads to finding solutions to cover up our faults other than the grace of God. Our other solutions typically lead us to rely more on our coverings than on God. This waters down our obedience to Him. It leads to the breakdown of community because we can not be open, vulnerable, trusting, and accepting if we are hiding. We find people who are like us and hunker down.
But, if we see the end goal of faith as faith, we see that having faith is not trusting that we now will be able to move mountains, it is trusting that our God can move mountains. It takes the weight and pressure off of us and puts God in his rightful place as the object of our faith.
Take the two characters, Simeon and the prophetess Anna, as examples of true faith in the Lord in the book of Luke. Simeon, although ripe in age, was promised that he would see the Messiah before he died (Luke 2:26). God’s word is true and Simeon encounters and blesses the Messiah when Joseph and Mary present Jesus at the temple as a young child. The prophetess Anna was also at the temple that day. One of the only descriptions we have of her is that she, “... did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.” (Luke 2:37) Although she encountered the Messiah as well, we have no indication that she was given the same promise, even though she was waiting faithfully for its fulfillment.
Anna fasted, prayed, and worshiped daily, with no promise of the result of her faithfulness. She was obedient to God daily because she had faith. She had faith over and over again, even if her faithfulness and obedience led to her death before she witnessed the outcome of this faith.
The end goal of faith is not obedience, the end goal of faith is faith. The overflow of faith leads us to trust in the Lord, even if it leads to no end promise, and to no reward.
Our reward is Jesus Christ. Anna knew this and she would have been faithful to God even if it had produced nothing on this earth. The outcome of her faith was the faith that God is who He says He is: loving, rich in mercy, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, the alpha and omega, the first and the last, Immanuel, YHWH...
Obedience is a part of the cycle of faith and is the fruit produced by faith. Yet, the end goal of faith is not being able to move mountains by your obedience, that is God’s job. The end goal of faith is having more faith that God can move mountains, and do “... far more abundantly than we could ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20)
What a relief that our earthly success is not a reflection of how much faith we have. What a weight lifted off our shoulders. Our faith should never circle back to ourselves and our obedience, it should always point to God.
