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 BY HIS OBEDIENCE

Mark 14:36 “…Father, not my will, but Yours be done.”

It is because of the obedience of Jesus Christ that I can be obedient to God. Because Jesus willingly went to the cross as the one and only sufficient and perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, as John states in his first Epistle (1 John 2:2), I can be born again by the power and will of God. In that Divine action, God gives me a new heart and new spirit where the Holy Spirit comes to permanently dwell and begins to live out within me the Life of Jesus Christ, Eternal Life.

It is His Life within me that begins to make the Bible, Word of God, begin to come alive. As Moses said in Deuteronomy 32:4, “Theses instructions are not empty words—they are your life!” It is by the Word of God that the Lord has revealed Himself in history, in time, that we might know about Him. It is by the Word of God that we understand that the Lord wants us to know Him and to be restored to Him.

The Eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, became a human being while remaining fully God. The Word became flesh and made Him home among us. Jesus Christ is the Living and Eternal Word of God. He alone, by His Life, death, resurrection, and ascension has made a way for dead sinners to become living sons and daughters of God. Jesus Christ alone turns sinners into saints.

His utter obedience to God the Father has made THE singular way for all who will believe Him to become new creations, alive with the very Life of God which comes to live within them. Now, by the power of the Holy Spirit living out the Life of Jesus Christ in the believer, the obedience of Jesus is being perfected in them. We can obey the Lord God. We can walk in His ways. We can and shall find our lives being transformed, changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another. This is the work of God in us, for us.

We no longer need to be stuck in destructive behavioral patterns, in lifeless habits of sin. It is a lie from hell that we cannot be changed. The statement, “I’m only human.” is a copout. We do not change because we do not want to be changed. We fear that if we let go of the things that we have held onto for comfort or protection, in the place belonging to God alone, that He will not be faithful to protect or comfort us as we have believed we need to be protected and comforted.

But, God can be completely trusted. I know this because Jesus Christ has done for me what I could never do, has paid the just penalty for all my sin and rebellion, and has destroyed its power to continue to rule in my life. Jesus Christ is the ground of my confidence that God will keep His promises to finish in me the work He began when, by His power, I was born again.

Deuteronomy31:6 was declared to the people of God just as they were about to live a new way of life in the land God had promised to them through Abraham. “So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

God declared this to them because they would face things that, if they relied on themselves, would indeed terrify, and immobilize them with panic. Change is hard. Trust develops over time and grows stronger daily when we take God at His Word. He will never abandon us. “If God is for us”, St. Paul wrote, “who can be against us?”

The obedience of Jesus Christ has settled the question as to whether God can be relied on for life. By His Life at work within the believer, that believer can trust, obey, and find that He who began a good work within them will indeed bring that work to competition. You can follow Jesus because of His trust and obedience to the Father. You can live Life by the power of His resurrection.

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