Tuesday: Power to Obey
Daily Lesson for Tuesday 2nd of September 2025
Read Ezekiel 36:26-28. How does obedience take place in our lives?
On three occasions, the Israelites fervently declared that they would obey God (Exodus 19:8; Exodus 24:3,7). Obedience is important, even if the Bible teaches that we humans are weak, broken, fragile, and sinful. This sad truth has been revealed not only through the history of ancient Israel but through the history of all His people.
How, then, are we enabled to follow God faithfully?
Image © Kevin Carden at Goodsalt.com
The good news is that what God commands, He empowers us to do. The help that is not inside of us comes from outside, enabling us to do what God requires. It is His work. In the core of his theological summary in Ezekiel 36:26-27, the prophet Ezekiel makes this point very clear. Only God can perform a heart transplant, and He does so by removing our heart of stone and replacing it with a sensitive heart of flesh. As Joshua reminded his audience: “ ‘You are not able to serve the Lord’ ” (Joshua 24:19, NIV).
We can decide to follow God; that is our role. We have to make the choice, the moment-by-moment choice to surrender to Him. And that is because we do not have the power to fulfill even our conscious choice to serve Him. But when we give our weakness to God, He will make us strong. Paul says: “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10, NKJV).
Notice the divine “I” in Ezekiel 36:24-30: God gathers, cleanses, removes, gives, puts, and moves you to carefully keep His law. What He is doing, you will do. He identifies with you, and if you associate closely with Him, His doing will be your doing. The unity between God and you will be dynamic, powerful, and lively.
Again, the emphasis in this passage is on God’s doing. The literal translation reads: “I will give my Spirit in you, and I will do that you will walk in my statutes and keep my laws, and you will do.” God commands people to obey and then gives the power to obey. What God requires of His people, He always helps them to do. Obedience is God’s gift (not just our performance or achievement), just as justification and salvation are His gifts too (Philippians 2:13).
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If we have been promised the power to obey, why do we find it so easy to fall into sin anyway? |
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Obedience is not a feeling or a desire to do what God says, but it is a matter of the heart. Obedience determined by the condition of the heart. Our intentions can be sincere and honest, but the outcome will depend on whether our hearts are transformed or not. The Children of Israel were honest when they said in unison, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exod. 19:8; 24:3,7). Human promises without divine power are simply good wishes. The secrete to abide by the will of God is not a matter of personal resolve but who gives us that resolve.
“It is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).
Therefore, we should abide in Him who gives us the power to be obedient. Unless we are in Christ, our human effort to be obedient will fail. “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). We must acknowledge that we are too weak to abide in the will of on our own. Hence, we must surrender our will to God on a daily basis. We must “die” daily (1 Cor. 15:31). By so doing, we allow Christ to live in us and to enable us to be obedient (Galatians 2:20).