Sincere Obedience

by Doy Moyer

Obedience is not merely an outward act that conforms to a command. It is a bending of the heart, a surrender of the will, to the mind of God.

If I regularly ran red lights because I didn’t want to stop, then I am a lawbreaker at heart. If I stopped at a red light because I saw a police car at the corner watching when I otherwise would have run it, then I still haven’t really obeyed as much as I have acted out of convenience for myself to avoid an unpleasant result. While that act submits to the authorities, it is not an act of a loving and pure heart. True obedience would be stopping at the red light even when no one is watching because your heart won’t bid you to run it.

While we would not want the unpleasant outcome of disobeying God, the truly motivated heart of obedience acts out of love and a desire to please Him. We are not just going through outward motions corresponding to an authoritative statement; we are bending our hearts and minds toward God by drawing nearer to Him through Jesus. We love because He first loved us. We obey because we know and love God, desiring to glorify Him in all that we do. Obedience — true obedience — is a privilege for which we are grateful, not a drudgery we barely tolerate.

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (I Peter 1:22-23).