Are God’s Instructions Necessary?

As a kid I remember building many plastic models ranging from Apollo rockets, planes to racing cars. One of the first things that came out of a package when opening a kit were the instructions.

In the excitement of getting down to the business of laying out the pieces in preparation to build the model, the order of which seemed pretty intuitive, the instructions were usually tossed to one side and ignored.

I wasn’t too far down the road of glueing pieces together that a mistake was made, like forgetting to place the pilot in the already assembled and glued cockpit. There was no going back to remedy the situation. This was the price paid for not following the instructions.

It is easy to think that we don’t have any need for God’s instructions in our lives but it will never be too far down life’s road to find out that we have messed things up to our own detriment!

It is for this very reason that God gave the Israelites the Torah to direct every little detail of life as instruction for everyday living.

Yeshua also taught his disciples and followers instructions for a successful life. In Matthew 7:24-29 He taught that those that heeded his words (instructions) and acts upon them would be likened to a wise man (vs 24) but those that heard His words and did not act upon them would be likened as foolish (vs 27).

These words of Yeshua came at the end of a teaching that contained some of the most unintuitive life lessons like loving one’s enemies, turning the other cheek or giving to the poor.