Take My Yoke Of Obedience

Deuteronomy 10:12-13 

What does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD's commands...for your own good?

Deuteronomy 32:46-47a

Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may...obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you - they are your life.

1 Samuel 15:22 (Isaiah 1:11-17)

To obey is better than sacrifice.

Proverbs 8:32

Blessed are those who keep my ways.

Ecclesiastes 12:13b

Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Jeremiah 7:23

Obey my voice, and I will be your God.

Matthew 28:19,20

Go and make disciples (students following me)...teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

John 14:15, 21, 23-24a

If you love me, you will obey what I command. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.

1 John 5:3

This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome. 

John Owen Discourse on the Holy Spirit

Holiness consists in our actual obedience unto God, which is revealed to us in His Word. Indeed, the Word of God is the only adequate rule for all holy obedience. It is not to be found in our own imaginations or our inclinations. All that is commanded in the Word belongs to our obedience, and nothing else is binding. We are strictly directed neither to add to it nor to subtract from it. We are to do not only what is commanded, but all that is commanded, and nothing more. If not commanded, it is not a part of our obedience.

The inbred light of nature yet remaining in us may give us direction as to moral good and evil, but this light must be subordinate to the Word and is not the final rule of gospel holiness. The law grace writes in our hearts must answer to the law written in God's Word. What we are and what we do; all is answerable to the Word of God.

Richard Sibbes

Partial obedience is not obedience at all; to single out easy things that do not oppose our lusts, which are not against our reputation, therein some will do more than they need; but our obedience must be universal to all God's commandments, and that because He commands it. Empty relationships are nothing; if we profess ourselves God's servants and do not honour Him by our obedience, we take but an empty title.

John Flavel  The Fountain of Life Opened Up, or A Display of Christ in his essential and mediatorial glory 

Jesus Christ intended when he opened your eyes, that your eyes should direct your feet. Light is a special help to obedience, and obedience is a singular help to increase your light.

Thomas Watson 

The Lord's Prayer

To obey God is not so much our duty as our privilege. His commands carry blessings in their mouth. There is love in every command, as if a king bid one of his subjects to dig in a gold mine, and then (told him to) keep the gold for himself (Psalm 19:11).

Body of Practical Divinity on Psalm 86:11 “Teach me Your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to Your truth!”

Let us lead Scripture lives. Oh, that the Bible might be seen to be printed in our lives! Obedience is an excellent way of commenting upon the Bible. Let the Word be the sun-dial by which you set your life.

C.H. Spurgeon

“Obeying Christ’s Orders”, 1889

https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/obeying-christs-orders/#flipbook/

It is disobedience, and not obedience which prompts us to select from the commands of Christ which ones we care to obey. If you say, “I will do what Christ bids me as far a I choose,” you have, in fact, said, “I will not do what Christ bids me, but I will do what I please to do.”

Evening January 9, Psalm 100:2 - "Serve the Lord with gladness."

That obedience which is not voluntary is disobedience, for the Lord looketh at the heart, and if He seeth that we serve Him from force, and not because we love Him, He will reject our offering.

G. Campbell Morgan  Malachi's Message For Today

I love God in proportion as I obey Him. The first steps may be taken in the dark without seeing a reason, but take them, and you begin to see the wisdom and tenderness, and compassion, and love of God. In the beginning, seek first the Kingdom, and when the soul seeks the Kingdom by obeying the King, the soul discovers the Father, and discovering the Father obeys more readily, and obeying more readily, has a larger revelation which makes obedience easy and the horizon greater.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones  Authority

https://archive.org/details/authority0000lloy 

It is clear that if (Jesus Christ) is not who He claims to be, there is no need to listen to Him. If he is, then we are bound to listen to Him and to do whatever He may tell us to do.

My own happiness is not the criterion. If He allows me to go on being ill or in trouble – whatever He says, I will answer, “Yes, Lord.” I will do so because He is the Lord. He is the Authority.

F.B. Meyer “The Blessed Life”

https://www.gracegems.org/SERMONS/blessed_life.htm

Disobedience is the cause of depression to thousands of Christian people. They are God's children, but they are disobedient children. The Bible rings with one long demand for obedience. The keyword of the book of Deuteronomy is observe and do. The theme of the Farewell Discourse is, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). We must not question or reply or excuse ourselves. We must not pick and choose our way. We must not take some commands and reject others. We must not think that obedience in other directions will compensate for disobedience in some one particular. God gives one command at a time, borne in upon us, not in one way only, but in many. By this He tests us. If we obey in this, He will flood our souls with blessing and lead us forward into new paths and pastures. But if we refuse in this, we shall remain stagnant and waterlogged, we shall make no progress in Christian experience, and we shall lack both power and joy.

A.W. Tozer         

        The Set of the Sail on John 8:31-32 "Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Disillusioning people is a thankless task and quite plainly does not come under the category of making friends and thinking positively. Nevertheless it must be done if we are to rescue lost men from the consequences of their delusions. So let me say boldly that it is not the difficulty of discovering truth but the unwillingness to obey it that makes it so rare among men.        

        The Divine Conquest 

The difficulty we modern Christians face is not misunderstanding the Bible, but persuading our untamed hearts to accept its plain instructions.

        The Size of the Soul  "The Shadow of Consequences"

To obey Christ in one or two or ten instances and then in fear of consequences to back away and refuse to obey in another is to cloud our life with the suspicion that we are only fair-weather followers and not true believers at all. To obey when it costs us nothing and refuse when the results are costly is to convict ourselves of moral trifling and gross insincerity.   

        The Size of the Soul  "Christian - Or Only a Student of Christianity?"                                                                                        

Saving faith is impossible without willing obedience. To try to have one without the other is to be not a Christian, but a student of Christianity merely. See Matthew 7:21; John 14:21; 1 John 2:4, 3:24, 5:2; 1 Peter 1:2; James 2:14-26; Romans 1:5; Acts 5:32. 

        Renewed Day by Day

A notable heresy has come into being throughout our evangelical Christian circle—the widely accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need Him as Savior and that we have the right to postpone our obedience to Him as long as we want to! The truth is that salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred Scriptures. Peter makes it plain that we are "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience." (1 Peter 1:2) It seems most important to me that Peter speaks of his fellow Christians as "obedient children." He knew their spirituality—he was not just giving them an exhortation to be obedient. The entire Bible teaches that true obedience to God and His Christ is one of the toughest requirements in the Christian life.