Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

Obeying Difficult Commands

PSALM 97:12 – Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!

PHILIPPIANS 4:4 – Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

THEME OF THE DAY: OBEYING DIFFICULT COMMANDS. Let’s imagine we are having lunch together. It is a time we are enjoying spiritual conversation in our commitment to help each other grow in Christ. In the course of our fellowship, I ask, “(Your name), what do you think is the most difficult command of God to daily obey?” How would you answer me?

There are quite a few candidates to consider; the command to witness (overcoming fear), the command to love all people impartially (even those who have hurt us), the command to study the Bible (life is busy), the command to pursue holiness (this sinful world presses us on all sides to compromise), the command to be faithful to the Lord’s Day (the weather is really nice and I had a long week, need rest), the command to sacrificially give of our finances (it is really a tight month), the command to deny yourself for others (my life is full of personal challenges needing all my attention), and there are many more we might share. But if I reduced the answers we may share down to one, what would be your choice? I have two that are really neck and neck as to be the “winner” as being the most difficult command to obey. One is living in a spirit of thanksgiving. By the way, living in the spirit of thanksgiving for all things is one of the evidences of being filled with the Spirit. We need to remember this. The evidence of being filled with the Spirit is not speaking tongues, not some feeling, or some experience. One of the signs is living thankful. The Apostle Paul told us this in his letter to the Ephesians, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:18-21). But the one I would and am sharing with you is found in today’s scripture. It is the command to “Rejoice in the Lord.”

Here is the difficulty in obeying this command. First, it is comprehensive. In the Philippian passage of today’s scripture, the Apostle Paul exhorts us to “rejoice in the Lord” not sometimes, not when life is pretty smooth, but all the time – always. And this is beyond human strength, but we need not despair or “throw in the spiritual towel” for when God gives a command, He also gives the strength to obey the command.

The next difficulty in obeying the command is it requires a constant denial of ourselves. The exhortation in both of today’s scriptures is rejoicing in the PERSON of our God. There is no mention of rejoicing in what God gives us, but who God is. And in order to know this God we are commanded to rejoice in means a life of self-denial. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Friends, without self-denial, we cannot know God and how can we rejoice in a God we don’t know? Oh, we may rejoice, but we will only rejoice in what God gives us and that won’t last because it is not relational.

God’s commands are difficult, actually impossible to obey in the strength of ourselves, including the commands to live with a thankful and rejoicing heart all the time. But the God of all grace who saved us by His grace will also empower us to obey by grace. May we experience such grace more and more each passing day.

PRAYER: “Father, draw me to see and live total reliance upon You to obey all commands, even the difficult ones.”

QUOTE: “God never gives a command without giving the strength to obey it.”