Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

The Obedient Life Of A Christian

1 Samuel 15:22 – And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.

THEME OF THE DAY. THE OBEDIENT LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. Obedience to the Lord is a big deal in the Christian life. In fact, it is the Christian life. Obedience gives evidence of being a Christian. A profession of faith in Christ without a life of progressive obedience to the commands of Christ is simply a false profession – “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). And obedience is not “a” measurement of our love for the Lord. It is “the” measurement of our love for the Lord – “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). But don’t be discouraged in your struggles with obedience. Nor lament over your many failings in your obedience. If you have a desire to obey and are purposefully seeking to obey the Lord, that is a really good sign of new life and growth in the new life. Perfect obedience is for another world. Sincere and growing obedience is for this world. So since obedience is the characteristic in the Christian, let’s explore four things to help us understand more this fundamental truth in the Christian life.

First, there is the logic or reasonableness of our obedience. It started in the Garden of Eden with these words, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness’” (Genesis 1:26). It is logical and makes perfect sense that God, as the Creator, is to be obeyed by His creation; us. This subordinate relationship establishes the reasonableness of our created purpose – to obey God.

The second thing about obedience follows naturally from the logicalness of it; our responsibility. Before the fall of man by sin, God created us in His image – intelligence, personality, and will. All in the contexts of holiness and innocence with the responsibility and ability to obey Him. What happened in the Garden was so catastrophic. It created within us an inability to obey God, even no desire to do so. However, our inability to obey Him does not remove from us the responsibility by creation to obey Him. It is our individual responsibility to obey our God simply because we are humans created in His image and the entrance of sin into our lives does not remove the responsibility. That is why we need a Savior to give us His perfect life of obedience. Remember, we are saved by Jesus’ life AND death and resurrection.

A third thing about obedience is our privilege to obey the Lord. This is what new birth does to a person. It creates within us a stirring within that views obedience to God as a privilege. What happens in conversion is we become so overwhelmed with His love and grace that gave us a new heart that we want to obey Him. And when God gives a new heart it always comes with a sense of seeing obedience as a privilege which leads to a life of privileged obedience.

A final aspect of our obedience is the delight in doing so. Christians yearn to please the Lord. With eagerness, Christians want to bring pleasure to the heart of God. And Christians know this comes from a life of sacrificial, purposeful, affectionate, sincere, and consistent obedience. They read the Word to know God and obey God. It brings satisfaction in their souls knowing the obedience God enables them to do is a delight to Him who gave them the power to obey. Take time and think about the Christian life. It is a call to obedience; an obedience that is reasonable, a responsibility, a privilege, and a delight of love directed to the God who created us and saved us to obey Him.

PRAYER: “Father, help me to see the pleasure You take in my obedience.”

QUOTE: “Let obedience become a privilege and delight that we get to do every day. It brings great pleasure to the Lord.”