It's a Girl!

I can't tell you how surprised I was to hear our doctor say, "Think Pink" at our ultrasound last week! But even I can look at the u/s and see... it's a girl! Baby Katelyn is on her way!

Friendship = Obedience? (aka 6 pages with Spurgeon)

So, this is an interesting line of thought I've been confused about for some time. During my ongoing study of the fruit of the Spirit, I ran across this verse in John 15:

¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command.

At first reading, my thought was something like... "WHAT?!? That doesn't even make sense!"

I haven't gotten much further in my thinking since then either. I assume it has some connection with the sentence just before it:

¹³Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Either way, it has been some months since I last thought about it... until yesterday morning when I read 6 pages of a book by Spurgeon called Being God's Friend.

Referencing Hebrews 11's summation of Abraham, Spurgeon draws a comparison between obedience that is motivated by fear and obedience motivated by faith (as was Abraham's - "By faith Abraham... obeyed.") I think I have only known in life and religion the obedience motivated by fear. Let me explain. We do what we're supposed to do, and avoid what we should avoid, because we want to escape punishment. I tell Derrick constantly not to speed because I do not want to pay a ticket. As a child, I obeyed my parents' rules so as not to get spanked or grounded. As a believer, there is this constant background noise in my head saying "This is what good Christians do" or "Real Christians would never do that." All such comments are only a positive statement of fear - fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough, etc.

I guess bottom line is I am confused about how friendship = obedience... maybe all of this is somehow tied into submission... I don't know. But it's fun to try and find the answers!