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)