God has always wanted you to obey him. His 613 Laws demand it but only FAITH can produce the kind of obedience that God really wants.
Obedience from the heart pleases God. Obedience that is the fruit of a responsive heart to his love is what God wants. God is pleased with the kind of obedience that seeks to preserve the freedom he offers in Christ. God is n0t impressed with obedience that is rooted in rule-keeping, his heart is after those who have been transformed by his love and now only desire to bring glory to his name.
The good news is, God gave you a new heart that has the capacity to actually obey him in this way, by faith.
Faith is this - God said it, I believe it, now I’ll make decisions in agreement with it.
Faith says…
”God said sin produces death, God said I’m dead to sin in Christ, God says there is more grace available than opportunities for sin, so I believe it. Now I yield myself to his inner strength, as an instrument in his hands. I receive his life-giving love in my heart and rise above the lure of sin.”
That pleases God much more than the kind of obedience that says, “God said I must obey, if I don’t he will punish me, therefore I must obey.”
Instruments of Righteousness
Obedience never produces or earns righteousness. In fact, faith-based obedience is the fruit of a heart that understands that righteousness is a free gift through faith in Christ.
“When you know just how forgiven you are you will want to live in a way that honors God’s mercy.”
When you know just how forgiven you are you will want to live in a way that honors God’s mercy.
When you truly grasp the transformative power of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, you will yield your heart to his influence and only seek to live in a manner worthy of the gift he’s given.
The legalistic mind-set would agree with this in theory but not in practice. The moment you mess up, the Pharisee no longer sees obedience through the lens of faith but works. Maybe you hold yourself under legalistic judgment, Maybe when you mess up you feel like you’re further away from God or he’s displeased with you.
Faith-righteousness doesn’t make allowances for sin, it understands that the new creature in Christ is dead to sin.
Romans 6:1 What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? 3 Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 We therefore were buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. 7 For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
To be dead in Christ means your old man that had a propensity toward sin was removed. You are dead to sin and its effects because you now have eternal life. Your physical body will still die but the real you, the eternal spiritual you is no longer subject to sin. And to the degree you believe in your mind that you are a new creation, you can yield to God’s power in your heart and rise above the craving for sin in your physical body.
Let me say it another way, the aspect of your being that craved sin by nature was removed and it died, now you’re a new creation that doesn’t naturally crave sin.
Colossians 2:9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by PUTTING OFF THE BODY OF THE FLESH, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
King James Version says it this way in verse 11 “putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ”
This is the true fulfillment that Abraham’s foreskin circumcision foreshadowed. This single verse is absolutely massive for the believer. Cutting away the body of sin means your fallen, sinful nature has been removed. God performs a circumcision in your inner man, cutting away your old heart, which is your old nature and replaces it with a new heart, therefore making you complete in Christ.
The word “flesh” in the phrase “body of flesh” is the Greek word SARX. Sarx has two applications. It refers to your physical body (flesh) AND it refers to the nature of man.
God cut away your old nature and replaced it with the righteousness of Christ. You truly are a new creature!!
You can obey God, not because you have to, but because you naturally want to!!
Romans 6:15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Because you are righteous in Christ, yield yourself to God’s inner power and live in such a way that brings glory to his name and peace to your heart.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog, I’ll send you a practical process to yield yourself to God that can set you free from sin forever!!
