Why You Should Do What God Tells You
Read John 15:1-17. Why should I obey God? Many people (including some Christians!) think it is a duty – a sense of obligation. But Jesus says it’s because of love.
If you’re a follower of Jesus then he is Lord of your life, and you must obey his guidance and leading. You can’t carry on doing your own thing. Jesus says you are his friend only if you do what he commands. But that leads many people to think we obey God out of a sense of fear or obligation, the idea that we’ll be punished if we don’t. But that’s not how friendship works! We obey Jesus because he is our friend. He knows what’s best for us. That’s why he loved and saved us.
And so we obey him as a way of returning his love to him. Many of us listening to and reading this devotional are Salvation Army soldiers. We have promised God to do some things like upholding Christian integrity in every part of our lives, to maintain Christian ideals in all our relationships and to be actively involved in our local Salvation Army corps. We have also promised to abstain from some things like alcoholic drink, tobacco and non-medicinal drugs. We do so, not out of a sense of duty, not because we think we’ll win God’s approval, but because we love him, and we believe those things are best for us.
Obeying God makes him smile, because it means we’re making the right choices. And making God smile and making the right choices brings us joy – much more joy than the cheap thrills of other things that look so tempting. Choose joy today – choose obedience!
THINK IT OVER
Think about the following:
• Do you see obeying God as unnecessarily restrictive or as something that brings you deep joy?
There's a new episode of Battle Drill Devotional every Monday through Friday.
Click on the link - https://linktr.ee/battlefieldresources - to listen, watch or subscribe to this podcast.
Read John 15:1-17. Why should I obey God? Many people (including some Christians!) think it is a duty – a sense of obligation. But Jesus says it’s because of love.
If you’re a follower of Jesus then he is Lord of your life, and you must obey his guidance and leading. You can’t carry on doing your own thing. Jesus says you are his friend only if you do what he commands. But that leads many people to think we obey God out of a sense of fear or obligation, the idea that we’ll be punished if we don’t. But that’s not how friendship works! We obey Jesus because he is our friend. He knows what’s best for us. That’s why he loved and saved us.
And so we obey him as a way of returning his love to him. Many of us listening to and reading this devotional are Salvation Army soldiers. We have promised God to do some things like upholding Christian integrity in every part of our lives, to maintain Christian ideals in all our relationships and to be actively involved in our local Salvation Army corps. We have also promised to abstain from some things like alcoholic drink, tobacco and non-medicinal drugs. We do so, not out of a sense of duty, not because we think we’ll win God’s approval, but because we love him, and we believe those things are best for us.
Obeying God makes him smile, because it means we’re making the right choices. And making God smile and making the right choices brings us joy – much more joy than the cheap thrills of other things that look so tempting. Choose joy today – choose obedience!
THINK IT OVERThink about the following:
• Do you see obeying God as unnecessarily restrictive or as something that brings you deep joy?
There's a new episode of Battle Drill Devotional every Monday through Friday.
Click on the link - https://linktr.ee/battlefieldresources - to listen, watch or subscribe to this podcast.
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