James 2:24

You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.
(NIV)

Last night this example came to me:

Let's say that there are two little boys sitting on the ground, quietly playing with their toys. Their mothers, just moments ago, told them to do that exact thing. One might go up and say how obedient these two children are. They are both sitting there and playing with their toys.

Then the moms come over and each of them tells their own child to pick up the toys, it is time for bed. You can see on both of their faces that stopping playing wasn't their idea of the best thing for the moment, but one of them gets up and starts picking up their toys. The other one continues to play, then that mom again has to tell him to stop. Before long it has become a battle of the wills, and eventually the child has to be picked up kicking and screaming. The mother simply considers the toys a loss and fights her way over to the car with the wiggling child.

Where they both obedient children? I don't think so.

Faith is so much the same as obedience in many ways, mostly because faith in God isn't a simple admittance of existence. No, it is much more than that. Faith in God is to truly believe that God's way is better. That God's way is THE WAY. He is the truth and the life. When one is a Christian they will choose God's way over any other way because they believe that His way is better. They believe that it goes on to joy and happiness. They know that the other ways of life lead in misery. So when God's way opposes their own selfish desires, their is no doubt about it, they will choose God's way. It may be a struggle at times, but it is a belief and a conviction, and they know they really don't have any other choice.

The child who ended up going against the mother was never really obedient. Playing with toys is what He wanted to do. The true test of whether or not there was a heart of obedience was when the child was asked to do something against self. Faith is the same way.