Struggles With Obedience
This is how we know that we love the children of
God: by living God and carrying out His commands. This is love for God: to
obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of
God overcomes the world.
1John 5:2-4
What happens in your heart when you here the word,
‘obedience?’ Does your back automatically stiffen, your breathing stop for a
second while your mind shouts a firm ‘NO!’ Do you think of dogs learning to
heal while on their master’s chain? If you are a child you may think of
attempting to conform to the demands of your parents.
Dictionary.com defines obedience as: “the act of obeying; dutiful or
submissive behavior with respect to another person.” Oh no, there’s that ‘S’
word. Submission. No of us likes to hear that word either, do we.
Fortunately, obeying and submitting to our Father is far different from our
parents, our boss, or our spouse. When we submit to God we are allowing Him to
perform a work in our lives like no other. When we obey and follow His
commands our lives run so much smoother then when we’re trying to control
things ourselves.
So why do we go down kicking and screaming, refusing to give in to God’s will
for our lives? Flesh. Our flesh is reluctant to give up the things it desires.
Our flesh wants to drive a fancy car on I-85 at 90 mph. Our flesh wants to
trade in our 40 year-old wife for two twenty year-olds. Our flesh wants to
skip church on Sunday so that we can stay home and watch the big football
game. Our flesh wants and desires all kinds of things that aren’t good for us.
Even the apostle Paul struggled with his flesh:
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to
do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do,
I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it,
but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is,
in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot
carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do: no, the evil I do
not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do,
it is not longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
Romans 7:15-20
Whatever our struggles are though, they can be overcome.
It doesn’t matter if it’s drugs, alcohol, pornography, adultery, lying,
gluttony, bad stewardship, or one of the many other sins that we wrestle with,
a price was paid so that we could repent of those things of our flesh. We no
longer have to be imprisoned, for we have been set free by the blood of Jesus.
