What Does God Want?

Every once in awhile, someone says something that seems simple, but is actually profound in its wisdom. This happened at church today and it made me think of another profound statement that was made many years ago.I'll start with the past....The question was, "Does God call us to be comfortable or committed?" Ouch. I think of that when I am tempted to complain or tempted to do the wrong thing even though it might make my life easier. I have yet to find a passage of scripture where God says to obey Him, but if it makes life a little harder, it's ok to do what you want. I remember a story of a man and his son walking through the jungle. The dad suddenly told the son to drop to his belly and crawl toward him. The son didn't stand and question his father. He didn't talk about how that might be inconvenient or cause him some pain. He was immediately, and without question, obedient. When the child reached his father, he turned to see that a large snake had positioned itself above the child's path and disobedience to his father would have meant certain death. What a great picture of how we are to be with God. There are certainly areas that we need to seek God's guidance and then make decisions, but there are other times that the question of right and wrong has already been answered and God demands unwaivering obedience regardless of how we may be inconvenienced.

The profound thought that came today was a passing comment made during the sermon. Steve was talking about how we sometimes make a ritual or tradition a substitute for having a relationship with Christ. For example, being baptized or taking communion without the relationship does nothing to get us to heaven. The point of the message was "When a good thing becomes the main thing, it results in deception and misplaced hope." There's the background info for the profound thought. Now for the thought..."If you buy a can of soup with a chicken noodle soup label, open it, and find tomato soup, it would make you mad." We can do all the "right" things, say all the "right" things, but if what's inside and how we act doesn't match what we say we believe, it can be very damaging. To take it even farther...if we act like a christian when it's the "in" thing, or we're trying to maintain an image that we think people have of us, or we're trying to fool someone (maybe ourself) into believing we're something that we're really not, but when it gets a little tough, or we want to have some "fun" that we know is not within God's plan, or it's just easier to justify our behavior, there is no real commitment. 
So, what does God want? Does He want us to wear the label of being His, without the actions and commitment to back it up or does He want 100%, all the time, all the way, no exceptions, obedience? Does He want us to be comfortable or committed?