Obedience

Most people don't take obedience serious enough. That being said, the only way we can be truly obedient is by doing it in the power of the indwelling HS. If the obedience is in His power, failure is in our power alone. Draw closer to Him and rely more and more on Him.

His power our effort is an unstoppable force.

Also let me say this, so far I have found three key elements to obedience.
1. yield to and trust in and allow the HS control of our lives
2. be in the word through actual a. study, b. meditating, c. memorizing
3. pray without ceasing.

JAM2b said:

I know that I can never be perfect

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If you know this,
then pray and seek YHWH by grace in YESHUA until you agree with YESHUA.

He could not have told all the disciples that they must be perfect if they could not be perfect.

No, not as if in their own doing - as He likewise says - but TRUSTING and RELYING on the FATHER in heaven to accomplish this and everything else concerning salvation in THIS LIFE, and the LIFE TO COME.
JESUS said as soon as they trust the FATHER to accomplish this, (now, today),
(on earth),
it is already done (already accomplished).

JAM2b said:

I've been searching deeper within me and pondering the need and capacity to be more obedient as a follower of Christ.

All these Scriptures keep coming to mind like,
John 14:15
Mark 12:28-30
Ephesian 5:1-5

And I think of teaching in the Old Testament about obedience bringing God's blessings and protection in the lives of the Israelites. I have friends who are gentile Christians who believe in keeping old Testament laws for this reason.

Then I think about grace, and mercy, and forgiveness of all sins... I know that I can never be perfect, and there will always be shortcomings in my life, old lessons that have to be learned again, or renewed, or applied in ways I have not had to before. However, if would be nice to have a more tidy, righteous, and steadfast life. It would be nice to feel closer to the Lord and more confident in my walk with Him.

I wonder if I should try to focus more on obedience and discipline, or if I should trust in His grace and rest knowing that I've tried. If more obedience is warranted, how far does one go with that? Old Testament Law? New Testament teachings only? Seeking perfection in devotion and setting my mind, body, and heart aside for Him? How hard do I take it when I fail? I can imagine myself being devastated on a daily basis with my faults and weaknesses. I can also imagine myself shaking it off and trusting in grace.

I guess my question is, at what point is this balanced? Is there a balance?

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Hello,

God shows His grace to us by training us in how to rightly live. In Psalms 119:29, David asked God to show His grace to him by teaching him to obey His Law. In Titus 2:11-14, our salvation involves being trained by grace to do things that are an accurate description of what God's Law was given to instruct how to do. In Genesis 6:8-9, it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of God and that he was a righteous man, and it was by no accident that he was righteous, but rather he was trained by God how to rightly live through grace and he was righteous because he obeyed by faith. In Romans 1:5, we have received grace in order to bring about the obedience that faith requires. In John 1:16-17, it says that grace was added upon grace, so the grace of Christ was added upon the grace of the Law. In Jude 1:4, it says that the ungodly pervert God's grace as a license to sin, and sin is defined as the transgression of God's Law (1 John 3:4). Strong's defines "grace" as "the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life" and when God's will is reflected in our lives, it takes the form of obedience to His commands.

In John 14:23-24, Jesus said that if we love him, then we will obey his teachings, which were not his own, but that of the Father, and in Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Law, so obedience to God has always been about showing our love for God, trusting Him to guide us in how to rightly live, and thereby growing in a relationship with Him based on love and faith. Since the beginning with God walking with Adam in the Garden, God has alway primarily wanted a relationship with us, with obedience to His commands being the way to grow in that relationship. While perfect obedience should be our goal because we love God and have faith in in to guide us, the Bible does not place any sort of emphasis on the need to be perfectly obedient in order to obtain something. Thinking that God required perfect obedient to His Law in order to become justified has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of it and of God because it makes it out to be that what God primarily wants from us is our obedience rather than a relationship. According to Jeremiah 6:16-19 and Matthew 11:28-30, the Law is the good way where we will rest for our souls, but someone who was trying to become justified by obeying the Law will rob their soul of the rest that it was intended to give because they will never know if they have done enough. Rather, the one and only way that there has ever been to become justified is by grace through faith, and by the same grace through the same faith, we are therefore required to be careful to live in obedience to all of God's commands.

In Deuteronomy 30:15-20, God said that obedience to what He commanded brings life and a blessing, while disobedience brings death and a curse, but if the dividing line between a blessing and a curse was whether we were perfectly obedient, then God essentially gave the Law in order to curse His children and condemn us to death. Rather, God said that He gave His Law for our own good (Deuteronomy 6:24, Deuteronomy 10:12-13), and I believe Him. Nowhere in the Bible do we find anything like that someone was doing a good job of obeying the Law, but they made one mistake and now they won't be justified, but rather the consistent message of every single prophet was to call us to repent from walking in our ways back to walking in God's ways, so the key dividing line is whether we continue to practice repentance. The Law itself came with instructions for what to do when people were not perfectly obedience, so perfect obedience was never the expectation, but rather the expectation was that we would repent when we are disobedient. Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent from our sins for the Kingdom of God is at hand, and the Law is how his audience knew what sin is, so repentance from our disobedience to God's Law is an integral part of the Gospel message.

Edit to add:

In Romans 9:30 - Romans 10:4, the reason why Israel failed to obtain righteousness was not because they did what God told them to and God gave them faulty commands, but rather the problem was that they pursued the Law as though righteousness were by works instead of pursuing the Law as through righteousness were by faith. They had a zeal for God, but their zeal was not based on knowledge because they misunderstood that the righteousness of God is through a relationship with Him based on faith. The goal of obeying the Law is a relationship with Christ for everyone who has faith. Our faith says that God's Law is not too difficult for us, but that it is near us, in our hearts and in our mouth so that we can do it, and this is what it means to submit to Jesus as Lord. In Philippians 3:8, Paul had been obeying the Law without having a focus on growing in a relationship with Christ, so he had been completely missing the whole point of it, which is why he counted it as rubbish.

JAM2b said:

Soyeong, that was very helpful! Thank you.

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You're welcome

I just edited my post to add another paragraph, which you might have missed. I do invite you to test everything I've said because I no longer hold a mainstream position on whether we should obey God's Law, which is why I try to quote Scripture as often as possible to show that it supports what I say and that I have no deviated from it. The NT authors also quoted or alluded to the OT thousands of times for that same purpose, which is why I find it questionable when people interpret the NT is ways that can't be supported by the OT, which reject God's Law. Likewise, in Acts 17:11, the Bereans were praised because they diligently tested everything Paul told them against OT Scripture to see if what he said was true.

Interesting and informative thread. When people talk about following the law do they mean the Ten Commandments or do they mean all of the rules in Leviticus (such as dietary rules and menstruation issues) plus the Ten Commandments?

Chosen_and_blessed said:

Interesting and informative thread. When people talk about following the law do they mean the Ten Commandments or do they mean all of the rules in Leviticus (such as dietary rules and menstruation issues) plus the Ten Commandments?

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Hello,

It depends on the person. Seventh Day Adventists will usually mean just the Ten Commandment, while some Messianics think that only Jews and not Gentiles should follow the whole Law, while other Messianics like me think that following Messiah's example of obedience to the Law is for all of his followers, both Jews and Gentiles. Where there is the most disagreement is in regard to ceremonial laws or laws in regard to have to have a holy conduct. According to John 5:46, Jesus said that Moses wrote about him, according Luke 24:27, Jesus began with Moses and the Prophets interpreting to them all the things in Scripture concerning himself, according to Hebrews 10:7, the volume of the scroll is written about Jesus, and Romans 10:4 is speaking about the goal of obeying the Law being a relationship with Christ for everyone who has faith, so it is all about Messiah, and he is everywhere in the Torah. Ceremonial laws, especially God's Feasts, are extremely rich with teaching about Messiah, God's plan of redemption, and are rehearsals of what we will be doing during Messiah's reign, so they are something that we get the delight and the divine privilege of obeying, which we should not deprive ourselves.

In 1 Peter 1:13-16, it says that we are to have a holy conduct for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus, such as Leviticus 11:44-45, where refraining from eating unclean animals is part of God's instructs for how to act in accordance with his eternal and unchanging holiness, not instructions for how to act like Jews. It should also be relatively straightforward that having a holy conduct involves keeping God's holy days. In Romans 7:14, Paul said that the Law is spiritual, which means that it has always been meant to teach us deeper spiritual principles of which the lists laws are just examples, and those deeper principles are the attributes of God. So the Law is intended to teach us how to reflect to the world God's holiness, righteousness, goodness (Romans 7:12), justice, mercy, faithfulness (Matthew 23:23), love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control (Exodus 34:6-7, Galatians 5:22-23). So while it is important to correctly understand who the law was given to, it is not good to focus on that so much that we lose sight of who the Law was given by and that it was given for the purpose of our own good to instruct how to walk in God's ways (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). Israel was intended to be a light to the other nations to draw them to God, to teach them about Him and how to serve Him by walking in His ways according to His Law (Isaiah 2:2-3, Isaiah 49:6, Deuteronomy 4:5-8)

Soyeong said:

Hello,

It depends on the person. Seventh Day Adventists will usually mean just the Ten Commandment, while some Messianics think that only Jews and not Gentiles should follow the whole Law, while other Messianics like me think that following Messiah's example of obedience to the Law is for all of his followers, both Jews and Gentiles. Where there is the most disagreement is in regard to ceremonial laws or laws in regard to have to have a holy conduct. According to John 5:46, Jesus said that Moses wrote about him, according Luke 24:27, Jesus began with Moses and the Prophets interpreting to them all the things in Scripture concerning himself, according to Hebrews 10:7, the volume of the scroll is written about Jesus, and Romans 10:4 is speaking about the goal of obeying the Law being a relationship with Christ for everyone who has faith, so it is all about Messiah, and he is everywhere in the Torah. Ceremonial laws, especially God's Feasts, are extremely rich with teaching about Messiah, God's plan of redemption, and are rehearsals of what we will be doing during Messiah's reign, so they are something that we get the delight and the divine privilege of obeying, which we should not deprive ourselves.

In 1 Peter 1:13-16, it says that we are to have a holy conduct for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus, such as Leviticus 11:44-45, where refraining from eating unclean animals is part of God's instructs for how to act in accordance with his eternal and unchanging holiness, not instructions for how to act like Jews. It should also be relatively straightforward that having a holy conduct involves keeping God's holy days. In Romans 7:14, Paul said that the Law is spiritual, which means that it has always been meant to teach us deeper spiritual principles of which the lists laws are just examples, and those deeper principles are the attributes of God. So the Law is intended to teach us how to reflect to the world God's holiness, righteousness, goodness (Romans 7:12), justice, mercy, faithfulness (Matthew 23:23), love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control (Exodus 34:6-7, Galatians 5:22-23). So while it is important to correctly understand who the law was given to, it is not good to focus on that so much that we lose sight of who the Law was given by and that it was given for the purpose of our own good to instruct how to walk in God's ways (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). Israel was intended to be a light to the other nations to draw them to God, to teach them about Him and how to serve Him by walking in His ways according to His Law (Isaiah 2:2-3, Isaiah 49:6, Deuteronomy 4:5-8)

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Thank you for the informative answer.
So, that means the 613 commandments as listed here? 613 commandments - Wikipedia
and then whittled down to 271 as mentioned here ''Many of the mitzvot cannot be observed now, following the destruction of the Second Temple, although they still retain religious significance. According to one standard reckoning,[5] there are 77 positive and 194 negative commandments that can be observed today, of which there are 26 commands that apply only within the Land of Israel.[6] Furthermore, there are some time-related commandments from which women are exempt (examples include shofar, sukkah, lulav, tzitzit and tefillin).[7] Some depend on the special status of a person in Judaism (such as kohanim), while others apply only to men or only to women.''

Where would one find a comprehensive list of the laws we should be following today? It is all very confusing for gentiles!

razzelflabben said:

Most people don't take obedience serious enough. That being said, the only way we can be truly obedient is by doing it in the power of the indwelling HS. If the obedience is in His power, failure is in our power alone. Draw closer to Him and rely more and more on Him.

His power our effort is an unstoppable force.

Also let me say this, so far I have found three key elements to obedience.
1. yield to and trust in and allow the HS control of our lives
2. be in the word through actual a. study, b. meditating, c. memorizing
3. pray without ceasing.

Click to expand...

The great example for the believer is the Lord Jesus having been 'obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross' (Philippians 2).

faroukfarouk said:

The great example for the believer is the Lord Jesus having been 'obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross' (Philippians 2).

Click to expand...

amen

JAM2b said:

I've been searching deeper within me and pondering the need and capacity to be more obedient as a follower of Christ.

All these Scriptures keep coming to mind like,
John 14:15
Mark 12:28-30
Ephesians 5:1-5

And I think of teaching in the Old Testament about obedience bringing God's blessings and protection in the lives of the Israelites. I have friends who are gentile Christians who believe in keeping old Testament laws for this reason.

Then I think about grace, and mercy, and forgiveness of all sins... I know that I can never be perfect, and there will always be shortcomings in my life, old lessons that have to be learned again, or renewed, or applied in ways I have not had to before. However, if would be nice to have a more tidy, righteous, and steadfast life. It would be nice to feel closer to the Lord and more confident in my walk with Him.

I wonder if I should try to focus more on obedience and discipline, or if I should trust in His grace and rest knowing that I've tried. If more obedience is warranted, how far does one go with that? Old Testament Law? New Testament teachings only? Seeking perfection in devotion and setting my mind, body, and heart aside for Him? How hard do I take it when I fail? I can imagine myself being devastated on a daily basis with my faults and weaknesses. I can also imagine myself shaking it off and trusting in grace.

I guess my question is, at what point is this balanced? Is there a balance?

Click to expand...

Obedience is an inner truth, that has more to do with who you are then something you do to become obedient. It's a truth you alone can enter into, and no man can lead you into, not even yourself ... which is why the bible's first commandment with promise (thou shalt not eat) begins (in relationship to the man) the reality of what it is to pickup your cross, or keep the feast of Passover, as a cup you drink of, a baptism you are baptized with.

God alone defines you, and can give you more in a moment then all those who have ever lived can teach you in a life time.

"obedience" in the NT is a part of the SANCTIFICATION PROCESS of all true saved believers.

OT:

Deuteronomy 30:10
if you obey the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this (Moaic) "book of the law", if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.(repent?)

NT:

John 3:36
He who believes in the Son has eternal (spiritual) life;
BUT he who does not obey the Son (to believe) will not see (eternal spiritual) life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Romans 6:16
Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

Trust and Obey
Big Daddy Weave
When we walk with the Lord
In the light of His word
What a glory He sheds on our way
While we do His good will
He abides with us still
And with all who will trust and obey

Trust and obey
For there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey

But we never can prove
The delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay
For the favor He shows
For the joy He bestows
Are for them who will trust and obey

Trust and obey
For there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey

Lord, I love You
Please help me to trust and obey
Lord, I love You
Please help me to trust and obey

Then in fellowship sweet
We will sit at His feet
Or we'll walk by His side in the way
What He says we will do
Where He sends we will go
Never fear, only trust and obey

Trust and obey
For there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey

Trust and obey
For there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus
But to trust and obey

Lord, I love You
Please help me to trust and obey
Lord, I love You
Please help me to trust and obey

Lord, I love You
Please help me to trust and obey

Songwriters: . DP, MICHAEL WEAVER

Obedience is a tricky thing, as taken to the point of white knuckle abstinence, it can become an idol onto itself and has the potential to push faith aside. I think of the Irish laundries. Certainly the women who ran them were obedient in their prayer and worship lives... and yet in forcing young mothers into slavery, in combination with neglecting their needs for food and medicine, they died, as well as their unborn, their babies, and even their children.

The greatest commandment is to love God, the second is to love ones neighbor, and I'll personally throw in a third, and that is to make disciples... albeit that does tie into one and two pretty well. And while I get that trying to follow the law can be a useful thing, if its done apart from faith, its no longer loving God. If obedience means ones neighbor doesn't get loved, its really not of faith either, its merely an empty gong, a creation of man. Going further, if one isn't making disciples... even if they follow the law to a T, are they truly being obedient?

And yet, I have messianic friends who do try to follow the OT laws, who do love their neighbor, and who make disciples... and they live on God's grace to take all of that on in faith. As a gentile, such is not for me, but when I see my friends faith lived out, I think its pretty awesome.

Bottom line, I think there are a lot of ways for obedience to fall off the path. I think there are a lot of ways obedience can be expressed too, provided it comes from faith, rather than other factors like peer pressure, or ones internal forcing of it.

As far as balance goes, the whole book of Galatians can be pretty instructive in this, perhaps start with chapter 2.

Chosen_and_blessed said:

Where would one find a comprehensive list of the laws we should be following today? It is all very confusing for gentiles!

Click to expand...

Why? God created all things simple. Man came up with many devices.
Want to know all that is required, a comprehensive list?
It's all written simple enough in Scripture for children, little children, according to JESUS Own Words, giving Praise openly and loudly to the FATHER in HEAVEN for revealing everything concerning salvation to the little children,
while hiding it (because the FATHER wants to hide it) from ...

25At that time Jesus declared, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26Yes, Father, for this was well-pleasing in Your sight.…
Berean Study Bible · Download
Cross References
Job 37:24
"Therefore men fear Him; He does not regard any who are wise of heart."

Luke 10:22
All things have been entrusted to Me by My Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him."