“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and not do what I say?”  Luke 6:46

PB and I used to sing a song quite often with our kids when they were little.  It went like this:

“O-B-E-Y, obey your mom and dad!

O-B-E-Y, it makes them very glad!

Listen to the words they say, obey your parents every day.

O-B-E-Y, obey your mom and dad!”

They were slightly suspicious of our smiling faces, singing a happy, lilting melody with a clearly coercive message.  And rightly so.  We were unabashedly trying to make obedience sound like more fun than Christmas and Disney World rolled into one.  But children aren’t easily fooled.  Obeying is hard when you’re two…. or four…. or fifty-four.  Jesus doesn’t lead anybody on to believe that a life of obedience is easy.

He also makes it clear that I lose the right to call Him my “Lord” if I refuse to O-B-E-Y.