If you read what Jesus taught, he said more than one sentence on what obeying God means. You have made it into some kind of warm feeling sans action. And Jesus followed the law and specifically said he did not come to do away with the law. He had something very unpleasant to say about people who considered themselves and acted lawless. It was not good. Jesus actually gave a new law too. He did not dislike the law of God. He did not think much of the law of man at points though. But otherwise lawless ones are not welcome in the Kingdom of God. David loves God's law, by the way.
Jesus avoided preaching salvation by obedience to the law, and so did the Apostles. Jesus is the fulfilment of the law for those who have faith. We get our morality directly from Christ in the form of The Holy Spirit. We love the law, the law is good
Rom.7:12-21, but it is no longer our Master,
Gal.3:24, it is our guide to Wisdom, Insight and Sanctification.
I can see that you will not see the point. Obedience is costly. Warm fuzzies like "love" and "sincerity" and "faith" one can tell oneself one has and feel good about oneself. One cannot tell oneself one has obeyed if one hasn't and feel good so easily. But when you do, the difference between mere sincerity and action is amazing.
If you are '
merely sincere' about serving God and obeying Christ, then surely you are not yet sincere. Sincerity is about being
seriously committed to something. If you think
sincerity is something to be avoided or can be dispensed with in your loyalty and service to Christ, then clearly the service and loyalty lacks
sincerity, surely? Is that not logical?
Let us test your theory. Please point to me a few people here who claim they obeyed God. If it is as common as you say, it should be easy. Just link us into those here who claimed they obeyed God and share the details.
Surely, humility is expected by Christ in His disciples. Any declaring their obedience openly or making comparisons between themselves and others, would fail the test of 'humility'. I don't doubt that many true disciples of Christ from Apostloic times until today have been and are sincerely obedient to God, (not that many can be absolutely certain exactly what God expected of them in every situation and circumstance). Just as you yourself cannot know the mind of God on every matter under every circumstance. That is why we need 'faith' and why 'faith' is our only means of securing salvation, not works of the law or supposed obedience. Most of the time we are quite unaware of how dissobedient we actually are to the promptings of The Holy Spirit, but God understands that and has made allowances for it. We are only judged on what truth we have knowingly rejected, not on that of which we remain in ignorance.
Luke.23:34;
Matt.6:12-14;
(Matt.18:34-35; In other words 'sincerely not grudgingly'),
Luke 12:47.
So you like the churches who condone the disobedient? Openly disobedient? Those are your kind? I mean what else am I to think.
Philippians 4:8 perhaps? That would be a good start. Rather than starting from the assumption that I am condoning wickedness. I am a fellow believer after all. Obedience to Christ is quite high on my list of things to do with such life as God has left for me. I would rather not spend the rest of it either condoning or condemning those more ignorant than myself of God's love for them.
So you obviously consider yourself having faith, what was your obedience to the living God in the last week?
Having 'the faith'
is being obedient to God.
Rom.1:5;
Rom.16:26;
Acts 6:7.
And obeying is not that difficult when you’ve developed a lifetime of doing so.
Clearly you do not imply by what you have written that
I have developed a lifetime of obedience. You don't even know who I am, so how could you make such an assessment? The only other person you could logically be referring to has to be yourself. Yet you then discount that possibility as follows:
Wrong. Where do I say who? God himself said his commands are not that difficult to obey. You think otherwise? I prefer to think what He thinks of the matter.
Are you claiming to know the mind of God? Or are you claiming that you successfully are keeping the whole of the law?
In order to have developed a lifetime of obedience it would be necessary to know the mind of God. Jesus Christ is the only human being to have ever done that. You, like the rest of us sinners, unfortunately frequently ignore what is in God's mind concerning what you should be doing. You should be concerned about that, not boasting about how easy his commands are to obey and how successfully you have developed a lifetime of doing so.
Have you ever had to make that choice at all, hard or not, between obeying God and disobeying where obeying won?
Frequently!
Do you know what He wants of you? (Just for you to think about, no need to answer me.)
Not often. I find written in the scriptures what God wants of me regarding my moral obligations to God and my fellow human beings. Knowing God's will the way Jesus did, I have always found most difficult, though I have not yet quite 'sweated blood', when faced with difficult choices.
Alright, be content looking inside and telling yourself you are sincere. That is not how God is measuring but it is a lot easier than how He does.
I feel I am a lot safer being sincere in 'faith' than believing I am obedient to law. I know
my limitations as also does God, know
my limitations.
Ps.139:1-18. I believe that God is merciful and requires
this of me: That I believe God in Christ no longer holds my trespasses against me, and has entrusted me with the message of reconciliation, which it is now my duty to promulgate to anyone who is willing to listen to it, and act upon it, and thus be reconciled with God.
So where are you in the sanctification line? Most people I read who talk about salvation and then sanctification and say nothing real about sanctification haven't left babyhood Christianity. They don't know what sanctified looks like. They can only talk about salvation as that is all they know. Obedience is still in the future for them... maybe.
I hope that my progress in Sanctification is satisfactory to the one who oversees it. I believe I shall stand.
Rom.14:4;
Eph.6:13;
Revelation 6:17.
.
