Two ways of obedience: under the law or under grace!

Beloveds of the Lord,

How do we live a life of obedience to God? Do we do so by the '"works of the Law" or by the grace of God? There are two ways that you can try to obey God, one by the strength of the flesh, and one by the power of God's grace working it in you.

For most of my life, I think I have known both. At times allowing the grace of God to work in me ,and other times I have worked hard trying to reach perfection in the flesh as they did in Galatia. I am not proud of that fact, but I think so many earnest Christians do the same thing.

I think when we begin to see some spiritual growth and progress in our lives, for some reason, we get prideful and try to help God out by our own efforts. We see some spiritual progress and begin to think that is the launching pad to further ministry work or opportunities and then use our ability to do it.

When in fact, if it was true growth spiritually produced by God, we would have waited for God to cultivate it more fully in our life. The "Present word of truth, or revelation God gives us" must become flesh. It must become our life's experience in reality to effect others with the power of God.

There are two ways to try to live a life of obedience to God, either under the Law or under Grace? Can you tell which one is leading you? Beloved's there are two styles of serving God, as their our two present ages of church life in our midst.

There are those who are in the end of the 2nd day church religious system" which tries to please God by it's own efforts in the name of God, and then those who have gained 3rd day Kingdom of God reality.

Then there our those who have entered into the 3rd day Kingdom Age in our midst where they have learned to enter the 7th day rest of God where they cease from their own efforts and the Life of God rules and reigns with them. They are led by the Spirit of God and have become full grown sons and daughters of God.

There are two ways to serve God represented by both ages. Paul highlights the difference between the law and grace for us in the Book of Romans, but these truths also reflects the different of the two spiritual days in our midst. The true life of obedience to God can be summed up with the words of the Apostle Paul and now be seen in the difference of the two prophetic days we live in:

"Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. Romans 6:14

...our being freed from the Law, so that we serve in the NEWNESS OF THE SPIRIT, and not the OLDNESS of the letter. Romans 7:6

Ye received not again the spirit of bondage to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption. Romans 8:15

Why does Paul have to write these admonitions to us, because the Holy Spirit is showing him that men can start our right in the Holy Spirit trusting and relying totally on God alone to work His obedience in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and then to turn to self-effort again.  That is his dire warning to us. This is where the end of the church age has brought us.

Jesus speaks to the 7 churches in Revelation chapters 2 :1-7 of "loosing their first love, but doing more and more works for God," yet the Lord does not accept those works because they lost their true love of God above the works they do for God. They started out well "in the Holy Spirit, but they are not ending up well, they lost their first love.

I know your industry and activities, laborious toil and trouble, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot tolerate wicked [men] and have tested and critically appraised those who call [themselves] apostles (special messengers of Christ) and yet are not, and have found them to be impostors and liars.
 

 I know you are enduring patiently and and are bearing up for My name’s sake, and you have not fainted or become exhausted or grown weary.

But I have this [one charge to make] against you: that you have left (abandoned) the love that you had at first [you have deserted Me, your first love].

He tells them to "Remember then from what heights you have fallen. Repent (change the inner man to meet God’s will) and do the works you did previously [when first you knew the Lord], or else I will visit you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you change your mind and repent.

In Revelation 3:14-18, Jesus speaks to the church at Laodicia there true spiritual condition:

And to the angel (messenger) of the assembly (church) in Laodicea write: 

These are the words of the Amen, the trusty and faithful and true Witness, the Origin and Beginning and Author of God’s creation:
 

¹⁵ I know your [record of] works and what you are doing; you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot!

¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth!

¹⁷ For you say, I am rich; I have prospered and grown wealthy, and I am in need of nothing; and you do not realize and understand that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

¹⁸ Therefore I counsel you to purchase from Me gold refined and tested by fire, that you may be [truly] wealthy, and white clothes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nudity from being seen, and salve to put on your eyes, that you may see.

At the end of the church age it is clearly shown are we living under the "law" trying to do obey the Lord in our own strength or own self efforts of the flesh, or under the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus by the grace of God given to us in the power of the Holy Spirit? 

For so many believer's, a life of complete obedience to God in everything seems impossible and out of reach. Some come to that conclusion because they "have tried" and failed over and over to live that holy and obedient life. Have you beloved ever felt that way, I have.

Many give up after all the failings. Some of you may be like I was, I kept trying and trying and failing, but you won't quit and will keep on trying because you know God requires it.

It is within this group that "tries and keeps on more trying" the Lord can work. He allows this group to fail until there is a complete helplessness, brokenness, and abandonment unil they come to the end of their own strength and power.

It is here, God can awaken within a heart to finally and utterly realizes, "oh wretched and pitiable man that I am, who can save my body from the shackles of death, OH THANK GOD HE WILL! Romans 7:24-25.

If we are to truly understand the ways of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit work we must be at rest, trusting God to do all of this in us alone. What the Law demands from us, grace promises to perform in us.

The law deals with what we ought to do, whether we can do it or not, it appeals to our motives through fear (punishment) and by love to do our "best at trying" to please God, but it does not give us the power to do it. The grace and power of the Holy Spirit in us points to what we can not do, (oh wretched man that I am) and then offers to do it for us and in us. 

Beloved of the Lord, This is the heart of the exposition of Romans 8 powerful chapter on life in the Holy Spirit. What the "law" can not do, The Holy Spirit will do. PRAISE GOD! Can we just accept it as true, receive it and allow the Lord to do it in us as he wills? 

Romans 8:1-4

Therefore, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit.
 

² For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has freed me from the law of sin and of death.

³ For God has done what the Law could not do, [its power] being weakened by the flesh the entire nature of man without the Holy Spirit]. Sending His own Son in the guise of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, [God] condemned sin in the flesh subdued, overcame, deprived it of its power over all who accept that sacrifice],

⁴ So that the righteous and just requirement of the Law might be fully met in us who live and move not in the ways of the flesh but in the ways of the Spirit [our lives governed not by the standards and according to the dictates of the flesh, but controlled by the Holy Spirit].

Beloved God has not sent His Son and the Holy Spirit to bring an "outward" appearance of obedience and holiness. He sent His son and the Holy Spirit to bring forth the "inner" transformation of our hearts. He has come to remove the heart of flesh and give us a new heart where He will, HE WILL, HE WILL, write His laws upon them. 

The "law" was written on tablets of stone and later put on paper, but the Law or the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus was written on our new hearts with all the power of God to perform and do in us what we could never do by the law, OBEY HIM!. 

This power of obedience in the Spirit of God is not based on obligation, or duty, but it is given to us by one ingredient, LOVE!  If you love me, you will keep my commands, Jesus said. He sent the Holy Spirit of love to do this in us. 

The Holy Spirit of pure holy love has come to shed that love in our hearts in complete surrender, dependence ,and to work complete obedience through our life out of love for God alone. 

Why will God do it, because He said he would. Do you believe God would do this in you and for you? Cause he has if you have been born again and filled with His Spirit. He promised he would do it and he has.

Deut. 30:6 Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

Beloved, Grace is not for us ignore that we have sin, Grace is the power of God over sin.  Paul wrote that Jesus taught him, "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness." The Lord must bring us to the end of "all trying to obey" once and for all, until we rest only in the power of God that is "working to "will this life in us" and has come to "do it" in us. 

The most beautiful words Jesus says, "if you love me, you will obey me, and you will keep my commands." John 14:15 can only be done in the love of God that His grace has come to work in us and through us!

The most beautiful love seen in the Gospel message is that what we finally realize that we can not obey God completely. "Our righteousness is but filthy rags." Isaiah 64:6 "For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.  Romans 3:23

Jesus came to work the righteousness of the law in us by the power of the Holy Spirit so "what the Law could not do," Jesus would do in the giving up of his life for us. 

Jesus lived the perfect and obedient life for us and then gave up that life, rose from the dead, and sent us the power of that perfect and obedient life to live in us by the power of the Holy Spirit forever without failure. I Corinthians 13:8, says, "LOVE NEVER FAILS!"

Beloveds, the grace God has given to us, is the power of God, unto our full salvation through the Holy Spirit living in us, guiding us, and working in us the power to live a life to do God's will and to obey Him. 

He promises to work all of that in us through the GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, which is GOD'S ETERNAL LOVE filling our hearts and there He write His laws upon our hearts and gives us 100% perfect power to obey Him through the Holy Spirit. 

Can we not see it? Can we know open our hearts and dare believe it is possible to fully obey the Lord always and forever and never have to sin again? Yes, it is possible. For what is impossible for man is possible for God. 

Beloved, let us now press on to run the race that is before us, I close with Paul's word to the Hebrews in chapter 12: 1-3:

Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us,

 

² Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

³ Just think of Him Who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and bitter hostility against Himself [reckon up and consider it all in comparison with your trials], so that you may not grow weary or exhausted, losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.

This is why the Father sent the Son into the world to do for us. This is the victory the Son of God won for us. This is why Jesus sent the power of Holy Spirit to fill us. God has given us His grace, His power,  and His Spirit to "work in us and do in us" to do God's will and live for His pleasure. Amen!