“But Peter and John replied, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him?”
Acts 4:19 (NLT)
In Acts 4, the council is behind closed doors trying to figure out what to do with Peter and John. Their best solution is to call them in and say, “Don’t speak or teach in the name of Jesus.” They’re scared of his name. And Peter and John answer with a question that exposes the whole thing: Do you really think God wants us to obey you rather than him?
That question hits me. Is there anywhere I’ve let man’s opinion or instruction overrule what God has told me to do? Is there anything I believe about God that didn’t come from him, but came from man? Is there anything I’m doing “in the name of God” that’s really for me, or for someone else?
Peter and John aren’t guessing here. Jesus told them to go tell the good news. After the resurrection, Jesus asked Peter three times to feed his sheep. Peter knows without a doubt he is doing what the Father instructed through the Son. So when man’s instruction collides with God’s instruction, the choice is already made. Sometimes the fear of God means refusing the fear of man, like the midwives in Exodus 1:17.
But verse 20 in Acts 4 shows the heart behind it: “We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.” When I read that, I hear conviction. I hear compulsion. Because of what we’ve seen and heard, we can’t stop telling. I can’t not preach. I can’t not pray for people. I have this gift I’ve been given, and how can I keep it to myself just to make a council happy? I love the message, and I love the people that need the message, and I can’t not tell them about their Heavenly Father—how he wants a relationship with them, how he sent his Son to die on a cross for them, how he wants them to be healed, and how his name has power.
And this is a wrestle you only understand when you abide. At some point, obedience stops being a have-to and becomes a get-to, a want-to. Obey God over man and be with Jesus until you can’t help but tell what you’ve seen and heard.