True Obedience Part 2

Disobedience is about voluntary sin.

In order to be able to understand what obedience is, we need to pay attention to the difference between voluntary sin and involuntary sin. When God talks about disobedience, He is talking about voluntary sin.

It seems to me that a student who is trying to get 100%, but missed a few points, is different from the student who says that he doesn't care and is just trying to get by. In the same way, there is an enormous difference between the person who prays everyday to be obedient and the person who believes that obedience is unimportant or unattainable.

The obedient Christian is always sensitive to his failures and mistakes, and by prayer and the engrafting of the Word of God by the Holy Spirit, he is ever pressing on toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

You might be saying, "But it sounds to me like you are saying that obedience is a relative word." In a way it is. Remember there will be no one saved from any generation who in his heart of hearts was knowingly disobedient to God. Everyone in every generation who was fully committed to the Lord was filled with a heartfelt desire to please and obey Him.

Let me point out that when we realize that obedience is an attitude of the heart, only God, who can read hearts, can determine who is obedient or who is in their hearts disobedient. We cannot be judges of each other. To do so is in itself to be disobedient, because we have been commanded to judge not that we be not judged (Matthew 7:1).

Another aspect to bear in mind concerning true obedience is that:

Temptation is not disobedience.

Let me interject at this point a comforting thought, and that is, temptation is not disobedience. Our natural man, the flesh, and the Devil will continually call us to pride, impurity, and unloveliness.

We will come to realize that there is in all of us a carnal nature, which delights in disobedience. We need to continually stop our ears to the siren song of the disobedient nature and die to this part of us, which enjoys doing its own thing. I repeat, the temptation to disobey is not disobedience. We need to understand this, otherwise we could think that we were insincere or something.

Let us remember, too, that:

True obedience can never come from fear, guilt, or duty.

True obedience is an attitude that a person has who is truly born again. A person who truly loves God would never obey Him for fear of the consequence. The Scripture says perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).

A person who tries to obey God because they are afraid not to has not learned, nor are they enjoying, the blessing of obedience. A person who is seeking to obey God and keep His commandments, because they would feel guilty if they didn't, does not enjoy the blessing of obedience either. A person who is trying to obey God in every particular, because they feel it is their duty to do so, is not enjoying the blessing of obedience.

A person who lives under grace obeys for that very reason. A person who lives under law cannot obey in the true sense of the word inasmuch as obedience is an attitude of the heart. True obedience is heart deep. However, the obedience that comes from fear, duty, or guilt is false obedience and is only skin deep.

Does a born-again Christian keep the commandments? Of course, but the issue is how and why, not what. The Ten Commandments will tell us what not to do, but not do anything to help us obey. A Christian is not driven, if you please, by a desire to keep the Ten Commandments, but by a desire to please God.

You can love the rainbow, but it can't love you. You can love the Ten Commandments, but they only tell us what we ought to do and show us where we are wrong. True love, to be meaningful, must be placed on something that has the capacity to return our love. Don't love the commandments; love God. Don't pray to obey the rules; rather let's pray to obey Jesus and do His will.

Some people say that they want the will of God for their lives. Others even say that they are doing God's will. But there may be a certain dishonesty involved. You see, many people reserve the right to decide for themselves what God's will is or isn't.

They are like the man who said he could speak every language but Greek. When a friend asked him to prove it he replied, "They're all Greek to me!"

There are people who say that they are praying to do God's will, who in practice have often decided for themselves what part or which of God's commandments are important for them. In reality they are doing their own will rather than what He asks them to do. You've heard the type of person who, when they run off with someone else's wife says, "But my God wants me to be happy."

We must ever be aware that the issue is obedience, pure and simple. And obedience means that we will do what He asks us to do rather than what we have decided He wants us to do. Some people are willing to do anything for the Lord except what He asks them to do.