Obedience?

“Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.'” (Ex. 24:3)

We’ve all been here, haven’t we? We promise God we will never do such and such again. Or we promise God that from this day forward we will do this. But do we keep our word? Few of us do.

Here we find the people of Israel doing the same. They promise they will do God’s commands, but in actuality, within a month they will be worshiping a golden calf at the foot of the mountain. So much for their promise to God.

And why is this?

The answer is challengingly simple. They failed to do all that God commanded because they assumed they could. This is the paradox of the Christian life. Spiritual victory is not found in pulling ourselves up by our moral bootstraps and performing great works for God. Instead spiritual victory is first found by a realization that we cannot obey. Then and only then will we find obedience to be possible because of the perfect obedience of Jesus in our place.

The Apostle Paul tells us how this is done.

"I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Col. 2:20) 

The only hope for disobedient promise breakers like ourselves is the crucified Messiah. In his crucifixion, we too are crucified. The old “I” is gone. A new “I” has replaced me. And that new “I” has a name – Jesus. Obedience is achieved by constantly setting our faith on him.