PART 6
What role does obedience play in the life of the believer?
Is obedience the line that God draws in the sand?
Does God keep record of our obedience and disobedience?
Now before you start to freak out, let’s read something really important that John penned under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
1 John 2:1 MY little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
3 By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.
4 The one who says, I have come to know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
5 but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:
6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
Don’t you just love it when obedience is put in such a truthful, yet kind and hopeful way?
Before we go on, can we just stop and take a quick look at verse 6?
6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
if you say that you abide in Jesus, you are saying that you continue to be present in Christ, if this is true, then it is your duty and moral obligation to walk, meaning that you consistently regulate your life and conduct yourself, in the same manner that Jesus regulated His life and conducted Himself.
Ya, feeling a tad bit overwhelmed?
Well, join the club!
But before your head explodes and your heart caves in on itself, let me remind you of a few things…
Simple truths about Obedience
According to 1 Peter 1:2, it is God desire for His children to obey Jesus Christ.
Obedience is one of those attributes that is on the top of God’s list.
I believe that obedience is number 2, right under love.
God loved,
Jesus obeyed.
In the Old Testament, God took obedience to a whole new level.
For us, we think that obedience is a choice.
For the Old Testament Jewish nation, obedience was most often a matter of bondage or freedom, prosperity or punishment, life or death.
We say jokingly that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and not the Ten Suggestions.
Truth be known, there are actually 613 commandments and a “commandment” is actually God’s “Code of Wisdom”.
They are the same as a good responsible parent teaching their children how to live, represent and survive in an evil unbelieving world.
The Bible says in Proverbs 12:1 WHOEVER loves discipline (instruction) loves knowledge (perception, discernment), But he who hates reproof (correction, censure-disapproval) is stupid (brutish-crude, lacking sensibility).
Stupid people can sometimes be amusing, but the humor wears off quickly and they soon become annoying and sometimes dangerous.
Let’s take a look at how seriously God took obedience when it came to the Jewish people.
When we are finished, I am sure that you will have a better understanding of Gods grace and as a result, you will appreciate even more what Jesus did for us on the cross.
Now this is a long passage, but every Christian should read it and be aware that God is a Just, Righteous and Holy God.
If this doesn’t put the “fear” of God in you, I don’t know what will…
Pay attention to the “if you, I will” relationship the Jews had with God…
Leviticus 26:13 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt
14 "But if you do not obey Me and do not carry out all these commandments,
15 if, instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul abhors My ordinances so as not to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant,
16 I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you a sudden terror, consumption and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to pine away; also, you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat it up.
17 "I will set My face against you so that you will be struck down before your enemies; and those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one is pursuing you.
18 "If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
19 "I will also break down your pride of power; I will also make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze.
20 "Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.
21 "If then, you act with hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you seven times according to your sins.
22 "I will let loose among you the beasts of the field, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your cattle and reduce your number so that your roads lie deserted.
23 "And if by these things you are not turned to Me, but act with hostility against Me,
24 then I will act with hostility against you; and I, even I, will strike you seven times for your sins.
25 "I will also bring upon you a sword which will execute vengeance for the covenant; and when you gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you, so that you shall be delivered into enemy hands.
26 "When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread in rationed amounts, so that you will eat and not be satisfied.
27 "Yet if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but act with hostility against Me,
28 then I will act with wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins.
29 "Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.
30 "I then will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and heap your remains on the remains of your idols, for My soul shall abhor you.
31 "I will lay waste your cities as well and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas.
32 "I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled over it.
33 "You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste.
34 "Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.
35 "All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it.
36 "As for those of you who may be left, I will also bring weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf will chase them, and even when no one is pursuing they will flee as though from the sword, and they will fall.
37 "They will therefore stumble over each other as if running from the sword, although no one is pursuing; and you will have no strength to stand up before your enemies.
38 "But you will perish among the nations, and your enemies' land will consume you.
39 "So those of you who may be left will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and also because of the iniquities of their forefathers they will rot away with them.
40 "If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me --
41 I also was acting with hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies -- or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make amends for their iniquity,
42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land.
43 "For the land will be abandoned by them, and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes.
44 "Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God.
45 "But I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.'
46 These are the statutes and ordinances and laws which the LORD established between Himself and the sons of Israel Mount Sinai .
Do we have a little bit better understanding of what Jesus did for us on the cross?
Aren’t you glad that Jesus brought us Grace and Peace with God?
Aren’t you glad that Jesus obeyed God and took our sins upon Himself?
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