This is Jeremiah Johnson and we are on God Today. Today I want to talk about obeying God. Obeying God is something that the Scriptures don’t shy away from talking about. In fact, when Jesus Christ came to the Earth He summed up all the commands of scripture into two. Many of us know them. He said, “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, mind and soul.” And secondly, He said, “You should love our neighbors as ourselves.”
See, loving God and loving people is actually commanded in Scripture. We are commanded to obey. What you find, oftentimes, in your Christian journey, is people are inspired to obey God through a variety of ways. Some people are inspired to love God out of fear. They fear being punished. Fear-based obedience. Then you have duty-based obedience – it is more of an obligation. You meet a lot of people – they feel obligated to obey God. They know the Bible, they know what they are supposed to do. They are going through the motions. To me, the highest form of obedience is actually intimate-based obedience. I call it “affection-based obedience.” This is what Jesus meant in the book of John when He said, “If you love me, you will obey my commands.”
I want to encourage you today to obey God. Listen to His voice to obey. More than that, I want to encourage your obedience to be motivated by love. There are things God asks us to do that are difficult. There will be times in life that you sense God is calling you into something. There are great sacrifices you will have to make. The highest and ultimate form of obedience motivated by love. I want to encourage you today to ask God to pour out His love upon you. Romans 5:5, “The love of God is poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” So God commands us to love Him. The wonder of it all is He gives us His love to love Him in return. My friends, that is great, encouraging news.
Let me pray with you today. Father, we thank you for sending your son, dying on the cross for our sins. Commanding us, even giving us an opportunity to love Him and obey Him. God, I am asking that as your calling on each of us to obey you today, let it be motivated by love. In the name of Jesus. Amen.