Free to Obey

God wants more than a compliant heart, He desires an obedient heart.  Compliance is defined as, “the act or process of complying to a desire, demand, proposal, or regimen or to coercion OR conformity in fulfilling official requirements,” by Merriam-Webster. There is an element of fear of power or fear of consequence.  Contrast this with obedience which is "the willingness to obey or follow the commands or guidance of." While there is value in compliance, most of us can appreciate the attitude of the heart that willingly obeys. One that freely obeys. 

Ezekiel 36:26 ESV says,

 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and

be careful to obey my rules. (Emphasis mine.)

In a culture that values independence in making your own path, we look down upon people who seek to obey. Obedience is often a bad word. Obedience yields control to another or places someone above ourselves. That is exactly what we do when we are obedient to our God, and yet who better to willingly yield control to than our Creator.

In that yielding process we often don't recognize all we are free from.  We’re free from  worry because we have transformed hearts that have been changed due to the love of our Heavenly Father. Obedience is not a scary thing in this context, instead obedience is the guardrail. Recognition of that guardrail keeps us within the very boundaries that keep us safe. These boundaries have been created for our good. There is a righteousness that comes from obedience to the only One who is completely righteous.

The Transformational Good News frees us to obey since we are living out our new and obedient hearts. In his recent book, Lay I All Down, Bill Tell states this principle: “I do not obey so that God will do something in me; I obey because He has already done something in me.”(Tell, p.143) When we are changed on the inside, our behaviors will follow.

Lord, we pray you would continue to help us grasp all you did for us on the cross.  We are free in Christ to obey since we have been given new hearts. Let us behave in such a way as to reflect that transformation.

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,    (Romans 6:17 ESV)

The Obedience of Faith

An Except From A Sermon

(No. 2195)
Delivered on Thursday Evening, August 21st, 1890, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

"By faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went."—Hebrews 11:8.

HE part of the text to which I shall call your attention lies in these words, "By faith Abraham obeyed." Obedience—what a blessing it would be if we were all trained to it by the Holy Spirit! How fully should we be restored if we were perfect in it! If all the world would obey the Lord, what a heaven on earth there would be! Perfect obedience to God would mean love among men, justice to all classes, and peace in every land. Our will brings envy, malice, war; but the Lord's will would bring us love, joy, rest, bliss. Obedience—let us pray for it for ourselves and others!

"Is there a heart that will not bend
To thy divine control?
Descend, O sovereign love, descend,
And melt that stubborn soul! "
Surely, though we have had to mourn our disobedience with many tears and sighs, we now find joy in yielding ourselves as servants of the Lord: our deepest desire is to do the Lord's will in all things. Oh, for obedience! It has been supposed by many ill-instructed people that the doctrine of justification by faith is opposed to the teaching of good works, or obedience. There is no truth in the supposition. We preach the obedience of faith. Faith is the fountain, the foundation, and the fosterer of obedience. Men obey not God till they believe him. We preach faith in order that men may be brought to obedience. To disbelieve is to disobey. One of the first signs of practical obedience is found in the obedience of the mind, the understanding, and the heart; and this is expressed in believing the teaching of Christ, trusting to his work, and resting in his salvation. Faith is the morning star of obedience. If we would work the work of God, we must believe on Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. Brethren, we do not give a secondary place to obedience, as some suppose. We look upon the obedience of the heart to the will of God as salvation. The attainment of perfect obedience would mean perfect salvation. We regard sanctification, or obedience, as the great design for which the Saviour died. He shed his blood that he might cleanse us from dead works, and purify unto himself a people zealous for good works. It is for this that we were chosen: we are "elect unto holiness." We know nothing of election to continue in sin. It is for this that we have been called: we are "called to be saints." Obedience is the grand object of the work of grace in the hearts of those who are chosen and called: they are to become obedient children, conformed to the image of the Elder Brother, with whom the Father is well pleased.
The obedience that comes of faith is of a noble sort. 

What are you working on?

How often do you here someone say, "I know I have a problem with ____, but I'm working on it."?

Possibly anger, over spending or time management.  We often take time to reflect on a weaknesses, then determine to pray about that area of struggle and, seeking God's approval, present a plan to improve that characteristic of our lives.

There was a time when I had let my love for recreational reading eclipse my time in the Word of God.  I wasn't  "making the best use of the time, because the days are evil."(Ephesians 5:16 ESV) 
So, my plan?  For every hour I read my Bible, I could read an hour in another book. I thought it seemed a reasonable way to approach shifting my habits.  Looking back, however, I see that by setting up the system of one-to-one exchange, I was stepping back into a works based mentality. I was trying to earn my way to guiltless reading rather than seeking to enjoy God's Word as the love letter it was intended to be.  My desire was to get more Bible reading time, true, but my heart attitude was not to know Christ better or to see the heart of God for me or to recognize the Holy Spirit's work in my life. I sought to manage my time better and while reading the Word of God more. A Check List mindset.

The Transformational Good News sets us free from working on not sinning.  Working on not sinning is setting ourselves up for one sort of failure or another.  It leads to pride in ourselves when the goal is accomplished rather than recognizing God's work of grace in our lives.  Or, when we fail directly,  it leads to self-condemnation and fear.


But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7 ESV)

We are heirs according to the hope of eternal life! According to His own mercy. How? By nothing we have done, but by justification by His grace! So let us step back from working on not sinning. Let us focus instead on allowing the God who has saved us to renew our minds through the Holy Spirit.