Love’s Trust Leads to Blessed Obedience
David W Palmer
(John 14:24 NLT) “Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me.”
(John 14:15 ESV) “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Today we look at faithful obedience versus unbelieving disobedience and rebellion, which is obstinate opposition to the divine will.
(1 John 3:22 ESV) “And whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”
Most prayer promises have faith as the condition for receiving answers, but here we see that the Holy Spirit adds another condition: “because we keep his commandments.” (The faith aspect is covered in his second condition: “and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” This is because Heb. 11:6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please him” (KJV).) We need to meet both of these conditions to “receive” “whatsoever we ask.” So, faith that doesn’t obey won’t receive the answer, “Yes,” to prayer.
In Hebrews, the Holy Spirit further explains and illustrates this through the life of Israel:
(Hebrews 4:6, 11 AMP) “Therefore, since the promise remains for some to enter His rest, and those who formerly had the good news preached to them failed to [grasp it and did not] enter because of [their unbelief evidenced by] disobedience, ... {11} Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], so that no one will fall by following the same example of disobedience [as those who died in the wilderness].”
In this passage, the Holy Spirit is talking about the descendants of Israel failing to receive the promised land that God gave them. The reason? —They didn’t trust him enough to obey him.
Without doubt, faith and obedience are one and the same in God’s mind; faith that doesn’t obey is not faith at all. Unbelieving disobedience certainly will not receive what God has promised. The Holy Spirit cites Israel’s wandering for 40 years in the wilderness. Why?—because although they heard the same gospel as Caleb and Joshua, they were not willing to obey it; they didn’t trust God enough to do what he said so they could receive what he promised. They simply didn’t trust God with their lives, their future wellbeing, or their protection; they rebelled against his command, and wandered in the wilderness until they died.
The book of Isaiah puts it so simply:
(Isaiah 1:19 NKJV) “If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land.”
God wants us to trust him enough to obey him. After all, even “the demons believe,” but they are not saved, rewarded, or blessed by God. Why?—because they don’t take any corresponding action:
(James 2:19–20 NKJV) “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! {20} But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?”
Don’t imitate Israel’s unbelieving, disobedient generation:
(Hebrews 4:1–3 NLT) “God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. {2} For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God. {3} For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said, “In my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest,’ “even though this rest has been ready since he made the world.”
We note that the unbelieving, disobedient people died in the wilderness, without ever inheriting what God wanted them to have. Like the demons, they may have indeed believed that there is but one true God. Yet because they didn’t trust him enough to obey him, they failed to receive what his love so desperately wanted them to have.
Today, do you have any areas of unbelieving disobedience in your life? Maybe God has spoken to you, quickened a promise to you, or has been prompting you to do something or go somewhere, etc. Yet despi
