Tag: Obedience

It isn’t that hard

Leave a comment

HIGHLIGHT

1 John 5:2–3 (ESV): 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

EXPLAIN

In the previous chapter, John urged the believers to test the spirits. To this church that had been infiltrated and devastated by false teachers, John warned them to check the doctrine and spirit of those who came in and sought to teach among them.

The true follower of Jesus confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh from God. The true follower of Jesus also demonstrates a life of love, for God is love.

Confessing Jesus is fully God and fully man and practicing the love of God toward others, but specifically the children of God, gives us confidence in a world of confusion.

And so the true follower of God love God and obeys his commandments, which are not hard to follow, because the commandments of God are summed up in one: love one another.

APPLY

Children often seem to think obeying their parents is difficult. It seems like torture to make one’s bed, clean one’s room, wash the dishes and dry them, sweep the floors, take out the trash and do laundry.

Surely, such chores take some time and effort. But as adults we find that “life” goes so much better when we have a clean house, clean clothes and a made bed.

Sometimes, we seem to approach living for God the same way as children do chores. We see all of the obligations and feel like it is impossible. But the basic essence of living in harmony with God’s will is simply loving others. When we practice love, we find life truly becomes simpler and a joy.

RESPOND

Heavenly Father, thank you for your love which has transformed me. May I now live by your love in all my interactions with others and so fulfill your will and your Word. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Striving to rest

Leave a comment

HIGHLIGHT

Hebrews 4:11 (ESV): 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

EXPLAIN

Using God’s rest on the 7th day of creation as an analogy along with the failure of the Israelites to enter Canaan as God’s rest, the writer contends that there is another rest for the people of God, in which we rest from our works as God did (Hebrews 4:10).

Fascinatingly, the Hebrews writer immediately uses the terminology of work, “strive”, to exhort the people to enter God’s rest.

The key to understanding this tension is in the concept of obedience. The Israelites in the wilderness failed to enter Canaan because of disobedience. So those who are called by God for salvation may lose out on the opportunity to be saved by failing to obey God’s call to trust in Christ alone by grace through faith.

In the latter part of Hebrews 4 and the beginning of Hebrews 5, the writer points out that Jesus, as God in flesh, understands our weaknesses and was tempted like us, yet he did not disobey. He lived without sin.

Indeed, Hebrews 5:8–9 (ESV): 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,

APPLY

It has been ingrained in us that salvation is by grace, which is never and can never be earned, alone through faith. This is true, and we must understand that we do not gain salvation through our own striving.

Yet missing sometimes in our understanding of salvation is that faith is much more than an intellectual agreement that Jesus is God or even that Jesus died in our place, taking our sin upon himself.

Rather, faith is a believing obedience, a surrender to the lordship of Christ Jesus, the beginning of a life of obedience to the one and only King.

RESPOND

Heavenly Father, thank you for your grace. I have surrendered my life to you, but I recommit myself today to live in obedience to your precepts and principles, always listening closely to the whisper of the Spirit. In Jesus’ name, Amen.