THE WAY TO OBEDIENT LIVING

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

"And how can we be sure that we belong to Him? By obeying His commandments. If someone says, "I belong to God," but doesn't obey God's commandments that person is a liar and does not live in the truth. But those who obey God's word really do love Him. That is the way to know whether or not we live in Him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Christ did."

1 John 2:3-6

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Today's passage is one that contains a lot of great guidance for us as we seek to learn how to live our lives in a way that is pleasing to God, our Father. It contains two major themes: obedience and living in fellowship with God.

Let's first look at obedience.

It is the desire of God's heart that we be completely obedient to His word, His will, and His way. By living a life of obedience to Him, we separate ourselves from the world and set ourselves apart to live a godly life, the godly life that our Lord expects. For He, and He alone, has created us in His own image and ever works to help us grow in righteousness every single day. All we need to do is submit fully to His leading.

Indeed, we show our love for God by surrendering ourselves in obedience Him. And we should because this Almighty Powerful God loves us enough to have us here this very moment. His mercy and grace are awesome expressions of His patient love for us as we seek to become more like Him through complying with His expectations for our lives.

So why do we have such a problem with obedience?

Well, there’s an affliction we all have that runs counter to God and that affliction is a disease called sin. Satan knows our every weakness and is always at work to exploit those vulnerability points so to lead us away from where God wants us to be. Our enemy is very skilled at tempting us to do things that would draw us farther and farther away from the One who can give us the power within to resist. And resist we must if we're going to succeed in proving we belong to God and love Him.

But how do we fight off the dark forces that know how to entice us toward failing and falling?

The key comes in the second theme from today's scripture, living in fellowship with God, and the guidance is clear. For if we’re going to live in a way that God favors, every Christian believer needs to “live our lives as Christ did."

You see, Jesus lived a sin-free life. He was the model of perfect right and holy living and so when we model ourselves after Him, our lives will naturally move from the darkness of sin into the light of the One who will set us apart from the world in everything we do.

Yes, we will be persecuted for our faith in Jesus but we need to remember that He constantly came under attack as well while bringing the Gospel to unsaved sinners. The devil came after Him just as he comes after us but the difference between us and Christ is that He never gave into temptation but rather pulled out the greatest weapon available to combat Satan's advances: the holy scriptures. Read Matthew 4 and you’ll see what I'm talking about. Every time Satan attempted to come after Jesus, trying to take advantage of a perceived weakness, Jesus battled back using a piece of scripture to deny the attempted enticement. He did this to show us that we too can be just as successful. All we need to do is follow His lead, knowing the Bible so to use it as the weapon it is, the weapon the Apostle Paul talks about in the sixth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians:

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. v.17

My prayer is that through the well over 4,000 messages under this ministry, The Christian Walk, will help you to arm yourself with Bible verses that you can use in spiritual self defense against the enemy.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Absorb His Word and it will be an effective weapon to use against Satan’s attacks.

and

Submit yourself to follow the Lord’s Word, will, and way.

These spiritual disciplines will help you walk the way to obedient living and show that you love and belong to God, your Maker and Master.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.