Lay it Down by Bill Tell

Helping you find freedom by laying down performance-driven Christianity. There is a place for you here. Welcome.

John 14:21 – prescription or description? (55 seconds)

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“Whoever has my commandments and obeys them, he is the one who love me…” – John 14:21

For years I read this verse wrong. And when we read it wrong it becomes a heavy load. It was for me.
I think most of us learned to read it first as a prescription on how to become one who loves God… “if I obey his commands I will become one who loves God.” In other words, my obedience transforms me. I also learned to read it as the prescription of how to show God I love him. I will prove to Him that I really do love Him by working hard at keeping His commands…and the harder I work at keeping His commands, the more He will see that I love Him and the more pleased He will be with me.

But what if this is not a prescriptive statement but an identity statement? What if because I am one who loves God (my identity), the result is I now have an ability to obey, and I do obey.

If we learn to read John 14:21 this way, it becomes an affirmation of the truth that our obedience is the evidence of what God has already done in us…rather than it being what we do so that He will do something in us.

Doing vs. Trusting (62 seconds)

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When I was in college, I was taught that one of the questions that I should ask of the Scriptures in my morning quiet time was “Is there something here I need to obey?” This is not all that bad a question unless our motivation is so that we can become righteous through our obedience. We do not obey so that we can become righteous, we obey because we are already righteous (Ephesians 4:24). Paul describes this effort to become righteous by our behavior and effort in Philippians 3:6 as “legalistic righteousness.” This is diametrically opposed to the gospel and Paul goes on to say he has left it behind…”not having a righteousness of my own…but that which is through faith in Christ.” (Philippians 3:9)

Recently I have been pondering a different question in my quiet time – I think a more fundamental question…”What would it look like to trust You today?” As I mentioned last time, it is my trust that pleases God. Somehow this question seems to penetrate a lot deeper into my soul, into my desires and motivations. I think why it penetrates so much more deeply is that it is a relational question.

Rather than just focusing on “is the something I should do today,” – now the focus shifts to “what is my relationship of trust?” Doing what somebody wants is a lot different that trusting that person.

Obedience is the Evidence of My Trust. (55 seconds)

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If God has given me a new nature and a new heart that is already righteous (Ephesians 4:24) – then my new nature is already pleasing to God. Now my flesh is not, but I am stuck with it until the day I die – and it is not going to be transformed. God is not in the business of transforming it, and neither should I. Romans 8:7 tells how the flesh cannot submit to God and it will not. The more I focus on living out of my new nature, the less the desires of the flesh will characterize my behavior.

So I have a new nature that is righteous and pleasing to God…so doing obedient things does not increase God’s love or His pleasure. What pleases God is when I trust that what He says about me is true…and I then live accordingly. It is my trust that pleases God! This is Hebrews 11:6, “And without faith (I like to insert “trust” here – it is the verb form of “faith”)…without trust it is impossible to please God.”

So why do I obey? What causes it to be a reality in my life? It is because I trust…it is the result of my trust. Here is the principle: Obedience is always the evidence of my trust. It is not my effort to please Him.

Next post: How does this change my time with God in the Scriptures? Saturday, October 23.