THE COST OF OBEDIENCE

Deuteronomy 11:26-28, John 14:15

Introduction

Every believer in Christ is called to obedience. Obedience to God is the way in which we demonstrate our love for God. However, obedience is something that many believers struggle with in their everyday lives. Why? Because of the free will that God gave us, we have the ability to make a choice, but we choose rebellion over obedience.

Why do believers choose rebellion over obedience?

1. The absence of the fear of the Lord.
2. The ‘I will do it later mindset”. Obedience seems difficult so disobedience becomes the only way out.
   • This is a very misguided mindset because now is our season of advantage to do God’s will, we do not know about tomorrow. (John 9:4)
3. Ignorance – lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6 AMP)

The Truth about Obedience to God

1. It is a true representation of the position that God holds in our lives
   • The mere fact that we have been given free will is a test of what we value most in our lives as Christians. The ability to choose to obey God over anything else shows how much we revere God and how much we truly love Him.
   • In Genesis 22:3, we are told of how Abraham quickly got up early in the morning to go offer Isaac as a sacrifice in obedience to the instruction God gave him. This shows how much Abraham prioritized God above anything else, he obeyed without hesitation.
2. Obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22)
   • Many believers today tend to think that demonstrating their love for God is through sacrificing their time and resources to advance the kingdom agenda while living in disobedience to God’s word. But that is not what scripture says, scripture says we demonstrate our love for God by obeying His commands. We need to do both, we need to obey & sacrifice, but obedience is still better than sacrifice.
   • Obedience is better than sacrifice because God is not moved by the resources that we can sacrifice, He is the one that gave us those resources anyway. God is moved by a heart that is willing to obey Him because obedience is a choice and a choice is made out of our free will.
3. Selective Obedience equals to rebellion (total disobedience)
   • There is no such thing as selective obedience.
   • You cannot pick out what to do and what not to do from God’s word or God’s instruction. Do not try to add to scripture nor remove parts of scripture to make it more “appealing” to you. It is wrong!
   • Do not attempt to even justify your selective obedience (proverbs 14:12 TPT).
   • You either obey God’s word and do what it says or you disobey it and ignore it completely. There is no in between.
4. Obedience means trusting that God has our best interest at heart
   • The instructions from God that we find hard to do are not a punishment. God does not delight in making us suffer (Lamentations 3:33).
   • God’s wisdom is not for us to comprehend.
   • Even when God’s instruction seems so impossible to follow through with, we can trust that our obedience to that word will take us exactly where God wants us to be in life, following that instruction.

The Cost of Obedience vs The Cost of Rebellion

• Obedience leads to eternal satisfaction while rebellion gives temporal satisfaction or no satisfaction at all. (See the story of Jonah. Jonah Chapter 1)
• Have eternity in mind
  • The pain we feel for obeying God’s word today is nothing compared to the pain that will come because of disobedience/ rebellion in the future.
  • The yoke of living in obedience to God’s word now is easier to bear than the yoke of living in disobedience to God’s word.
  • Eternity is a long time. Choose the yoke to bear now wisely for the sake of eternity.

Recurrent Thought

Obedience and rebellion are both very costly. We can either choose to bear the cost of obedience now and enjoy the pleasures of living with God in eternity or we enjoy the pleasures of living in rebellion now and bear its cost for eternity.

Altar Time

1. Pray for the restoration of the fear of the Lord.
2. Pray that obedience will be our natural response to God’s word and instruction.
3. Pray against selective obedience.