Power to Obey

How many times have you herd the excuse, “But I am afraid I can’t live the Christian life”?

The badge of the true disciple of Jesus Christ is obedient faith.

Jesus told His disciples, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

He has commanded us to go and make disciples of every nation. And when we are obedient He gives us the power to obey His command (Acts 1:8).

He gives us Himself, and in the giving of Himself He gives us all that we need to obey Him.

The power we know we need to accomplish His will can be ours if we obey His Word. As we yield ourselves to Him He will fulfill His will in and through us. He does not ask us to do anything that He does not enable us to do.

The indwelling Holy Spirit is in us an all-prevailing source of power to obey His commands. He abides in us and we in Him. Our greatest needs are fully met in Christ and all that He provides for His people. He gives us the vitality, energy, and spiritual power to do everything God asks of us.

We are by the divine power of the Spirit of God set free to serve Him, and obey Him.

A true Christian knows the power of obedience. Christian liberty is not a license to sin it up. There is freedom in the liberating good news of Jesus Christ. But it is not a freedom to give ourselves to licentious pleasures of the flesh. It is a new freedom to serve God in righteousness (Rom. 6:12ff). He gives us the freedom to love Him with all our heart. “If we love Him we will obey Him.”

We get our freedom through surrender to Christ. We get the power to obey by obeying. We have been set free to do the will of God.

Have you ever tried to witness to an unbeliever without being in fellowship with the Holy Spirit? Our words are like dead lives fall on frozen ground during the winter. But when the Holy Spirit quickens the heart and we are in fellowship with Him they penetrate the heart of unbelief and He uses them to accomplish His purpose.

What blessed joy when He gives us power to declare the Word of God with power. We are told that He can be grieved by our unyieldedness, but we can also bring joy to Him as we yield ourselves to His control.

Jesus gave to His disciples through the gift of His Spirit the power to speak and be witnesses to His death and resurrection. The power of the Holy Spirit is the power to think God’s thoughts after Him, to speak His words to all men.

Jesus commands us to go and preach His good news. When we do He gives us His enabling power. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31).

Are you spiritually anemic? Have you gone to Him in humility, confessing your sins, turning from them and making yourself available to Him to do anything He wants to do in and through you?

When He has us ready spiritually He will use us. The Holy Spirit indwells us, giving us the power to obey God. All that He asks is total obedience. The Holy Spirit is within us, and by His power we can do His bidding. We will receive His power to obey. He even gives us faith to trust Him.

Will you make yourself available to Him to do anything that pleases Him in and through you? It may scare you to death. But that is all that He asks. Don’t think up a bunch of excuses. Just say, “Here am I, send me, Lord.” And then step out trusting Him for His enabling, anointing and power. The moment you act upon what you know to be God’s will, God answers that prayer, and He empowers you to do what you cannot do in yourself. The Holy Spirit gives us the desire, ability, and power to do the will of God.

If you love Him, you will obey Him.

Love solves our obedience problem.


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