Children are notorious for blurting out whatever is in their minds, greeting a dinner guest by announcing, “My mother says she hopes you don’t talk about your operation while we’re trying to eat” or asking Aunt Minnie, “Why are your teeth so crooked?”

We older people cringe and try to explain the difference between being tactful and being dishonest! It’s not always an easy distinction.

Teenagers often complain about hypocrites in the church. They are quick to discern a double standard in their teachers and leaders. Sometimes their questions can make us even more uncomfortable than the blunt observations of a five-year-old. But they demand straight answers and despise pretension. One expression I heard recently from the teenage set was, “Get real!”

It was used as a challenge to reality, meaning the same thing as, “You’ve got to be kidding!” or “You’re putting me on!” or “You don’t really mean that!”

God Himself likes reality! When Jesus was here, He came down harder on the Pharisees than on anyone else. Some of the strongest language in the Bible is addressed to the hypocrites, such as Revelation 3, where God goes so far as to say that He prefers the open sinner to the pretend Christian. Only He wasn’t that “polite” about saying it!

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Verses 15, 16.

“Your self righteousness is nauseating to the Lord Jesus Christ.” – Ellen G. White Comments, S.D.A. Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 963

God insists on reality! He wants only prayer that comes from the heart. He doesn’t want just the words. See Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, p. 86. He wants only the gifts and offerings that come because of love and a willingness to give. He doesn’t want anything that is given grudgingly. See 2 Corinthians 9:7.

“Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.” – 2 Corinthians 9:7

And He wants only the service of love. He wants obedience that comes from the heart.

External obedience doesn’t count with God.

“There are those who profess to serve God, while they rely upon their own efforts to obey His law, to form a right character, and secure salvation. Their hearts are not moved by any deep sense of the love of Christ, but they seek to perform the duties of the Christian life as that which God requires of them in order to gain heaven. Such religion is worth nothing.” – Steps to Christ, p. 44. (Emphasis supplied.)

“The man who attempts to keep the commandments of God from a sense of obligation merely–because he is required to do so–will never enter into the joy of obedience. He does not obey. When the requirements of God are accounted a burden because they cut across human inclination, we may know that the life is not a Christian life. True obedience is the outworking of a principle within.” – Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 97. (Emphasis supplied.)

Here we find another convincing argument for “natural” obedience. God doesn’t even consider “good deeds” to be obedience unless they come from the heart. Therefore, any morality that we can come up with apart from Him, any forcing ourselves to do what God has asked us to do, doesn’t even count as obedience.

God recognizes only reality! If our obedience doesn’t come from the inside, it’s not obedience at all. That’s what Jesus said in Matthew 5, when He reminded us that hate is the basis of murder and lust is the basis of adultery. It’s not enough simply to refrain from the evil deed. The desire for wrong cherished in the heart is sin.

God promises us reality! He has more to offer us than a life- forcing ourselves to do what we hate and gritting our keep from doing what we really love. When He lives His life in us, we will obey because obedience is in harmony with our own desires. That’s the only kind of genuine obedience there is.