The Secret of True Obedience

Beware! We live in a time when everyone wants a quick, easy, and simple fix for every problem -- a magic pill or special moment or simple task that will fix everything and make all right. This is true even among Christians and is especially true for the subject of obedience.

Obedience to God doesn't come in a simple-one-size-fits-all formula. Three prayers, an extra gift to missions, and perfect Sunday School attendance does not make obeying God easier nor instantaneous.  

Nevertheless, if there is a concise secret to obedience, Andrew Murray has state it best: 

"The secret of true obedience— let me say at once what I believe it to be—is the clear and close personal relationship to God. All our attempts after full obedience will be failures until we get access to His abiding fellowship. It is God’s holy presence, consciously abiding with us, that keeps us from disobeying Him.

The secret of a true obedience is the return to close and continual fellowship with God." (From Andrew Murray's book The School of Obedience)

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Obedience*

The New Testament Church is founded on the Word of God and the principle of Grace. While it is a fundamental truth that salvation is obtained by grace through faith alone, we often forget that obedience is expected – is demanded of His children. Andrew Murray in his book, In the School of Obedience, reminds us of our obligation to obey. Follow @pastorbarr

"We begin with Paradise. In Gen. 2:16, we read: ‘And the Lord God commanded the man, saying.’ And later (3:11), ‘Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?’

Note how obedience to the command is the one virtue of Paradise, the one condition of man’s abiding there, the one thing his Creator asks of him. Nothing is said of faith, or humility, or love: obedience includes all. As supreme as is the claim and authority of God is the demand for obedience as the one thing that is to DECIDE HIS DESTINY.

In the life of man, to obey is the one thing needful.

Turn now from the beginning to the close of the Bible. In its last chapter you read (Rev. 22:14), ‘Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life.’ Or, if we accept the Revised Version, which gives another reading, we have the same thought in chapters 12 and 14, where we read of the seed of the woman (12:17), ‘which keep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus’; and of the patience of the saints (14:12), ‘Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.’ From beginning to end, from Paradise lost to Paradise regained, the law is unchangeable—it is only obedience that gives access to the tree of life and the favor of God.

And if you ask how the change was effected out of the disobedience at the beginning that closed the way to the tree of life, to the obedience at the end that again gained entrance to it, turn to THAT WHICH STANDS MIDWAY between the beginning and the end—the cross of Christ. Read a passage like Rom. 5:19, ‘Through the obedience of the One shall the many be made righteous’; or Phil. 2:8, ‘He became obedient unto death, therefore God hath highly exalted Him’; or Heb. 5:8, 9, ‘He learned obedience and became the Author of salvation to them that obey Him,’ and you see how the whole redemption of Christ consists in restoring obedience to its place. The beauty of His salvation consists in this, that He brings us back to the life of obedience, through which alone the creature can give the Creator the glory due to Him, or receive the glory of which his Creator desires to make him partaker.

Paradise, Calvary, Heaven, all proclaim with one voice:

‘Child of God! the first and the last thing thy God asks of thee is simple, universal, unchanging obedience.’"

-Andrew Murray, In the School of Obedience

If you enjoyed today's devotional thought, may we suggest Pastor Jim's book For His Glory: A Kaleidoscope of Wisdom.