Thursday: Spirit-Led Obedience
The Holy Spirit played a major role in every aspect of Jesus’ life. He was “conceived of the Holy Spirit” (NKJV) at birth and “anointed . . . with the Holy Spirit and with power” (NKJV) at baptism-the birth of His ministry (Matt. 1:20; 3:16-17; Acts 10:34-38). Throughout Christ’s life, He was obedient to the Father’s will (John 8:29, Heb. 10:7).
Read Philippians 2:5-8. What aspects of a life filled with the Holy Spirit appear in this specific description of Jesus?
He who was “in the form,” or the very essence of God, “made Himself” (or as the original Greek text of the New Testament says) “emptied Himself” of His privileges and prerogatives as God’s equal and, instead, became “a servant.”
Jesus was a servant to the Father’s will. He “humbled Himself” and became, “obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). Jesus provides an example of what a life filled with the Holy Spirit is like. It is a life of willing obedience and humble submission to the Father’s will. It is a prayerful life devoted to service and ministry, a life consumed with the passionate desire to see others saved in the Father’s kingdom.
The apostle Paul declares that Spirit-filled, New Testament believers have “received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name” (Rom. 1:5, NKJV). The heathen, on the other hand, “are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness-indignation and wrath” (Rom. 2:8, NKJV).
In Romans 6:15-23, Paul uses two contrasting expressions, “slaves of sin” (NKJV) and “slaves of righteousness” (NKJV). InRomans 8:12-17, he describes the “spirit of bondage” and the “Spirit of adoption.” What does your own experience with the Lord, with faith, with the struggle against sin, and for acceptance with God tell you about the meaning of these terms?
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Basically when one lives a life that is led by the Holy Spirit he is naturally humbled. When we read throughout the story of Jesus in this earth he was humble and always was led by the Holy Spirit. It is a challenge to us to live this humbled life, but first we need to revive and reform and accept the true reformation. If we can flip through Peter who was one of the disciples of Jesus, Jesus asked, Peter do love me three times because Jesus knew that he had not fully given his life to Jesus. The second test is when he denied that he never knew Jesus but later realized what he had done and prayed for forgiveness. And lastly when he and other disciples decided to spread the gospel and what he went through until his death spreading the true gospel. I want to put this as a challenge brethren how many times have you denied Jesus and how many times have you chased away the Holy Spirit that can lead you through temptations?
Actually, humility is the beginning of such an experience. This humility comes when we see the goodness of God in Christ towards us, and recognize our sinfulness in comparison to Him. You can follow the whole process as laid out by Jesus in the Beatitudes, and see what it leads to. This is the path of the Christian experience and results in perfect obedience through faith in God's exceeding great and precious promises.
To have the mind of Jesus is to first be emptied of self. (Phil 2:5)
Obedience means; compliance to the plan,conformity to the pattern,observance of the rules,adherence to the standard and submission to anothers' will. To obey God means doing what God says in the timing and manner He says to do it. Once we decide to obey and start down the road, we can expect a challenge from the enemy. He might use distraction to divert us from a godly path. Commitment like Christ's requires knowledge of the scripture (Mathew 4:1-10), obedience action, determination and willingness to suffer any consequences that derive from compliance. Whenever you are tempted to disobey God,your faithfulness and devotion to Christ is at stake. One of the most important things of being a christian is obedience but it is harder than sounds. Being obedience to God does not just mean saying okay when He commands us to do something. Obedience to God requires obedient with your heart, will, mind, body, finances and with your future. We should also remember that obedience is not something we learn overnight. It is a lifelong process that we pursue by making it a daily goal. Obedience brings us closer to God and also shows our love for Jesus.
From the lesson,it is revealed by the verses of Paul that obedience leads to slavery,slavery to righteousness. Disobedience on the other hand leads to slavery,slavery to sin. It is a pity that we take it so lightly to pray for obedience in our lives and very dangerous because,little by little,we are being lead to become slaves of sin. This is evident by thinking of that one thing that you often say "I'll do it just for today" and find yourself doing it for the second or third time. The more times you postpone leaving that sin is the more you're enslaved by it. Thereby,acquiring disobedience to God and losing out on the good fruits of the Spirit. Too many a times when we ignore the Holy Spirit,it slips our minds that the Holy Spirit is a part of the God-head,The Spirit is God as well.....so ignoring Him and not listening to His rebukes is disobedience to GOD!!! It is an appeal that we come to the realisation that we need God,now more than ever,we need Him to cleanse our sins,to revive,to reform,to give new,clean hearts like David,to teach us the right way to live for God and most of all,we need Christ to rule our lives that we may have life,to the fullest.
If we read Greek than there will be a diferent words when talking abouth Person and a power. Power of spirit is "dynamis" that is a word for potentialy or acumulated energy which can explode and free us from sin.
'Obedience' should not be used to beat someone over the head. Rather we are to preach Christ and Christ only. What is preaching Christ and Christ only? Answer: The Gospel, the character of God. The love of God as seen in nature, thus bring home the need for God. Confession, repentance, forgiveness, consecration, tolerance, respect, bonding, unity in a common goal, setting aside differences, love prevails. Love also prevails when The Word is not twisted a little to get someone to think. You may rather be provoking them to being obsessive compulsive on obedience, thus God forbid polarizing the church. If we all get involved in a common goal, Heaven, eternal life, and sharing Christ righteousness, miraculously the church depolarizes. If you must repolarize, at least depolarize soon. If you don't depolarize you won't be ready for next beat, which could be telling someone about what Jesus has done for you.
Yes John, obedience should not be the focus as it is an end-result of a proper focus on our Savior who alone can cleanse the soul of it's natural bent towards sin. For too long obedience was central in the thinking of many and made the supreme object, yet without the ways and means to achieve it while in this sinful world. Too many "revivals" were short lived when emotions died down yet again in clock-like fashion. What a difference a right focus would have made, and still can.
Setting aside differences is a worthy goal if it does not lead to compromise with truth. We are in a day of great perils from without and within and need constant prayer and study to keep our course; following the Lamb of God where He leads.
Thank-you Robert, I agree with you. You filled in the areas I left for implication. Oh yes truth must not be compromised for unity as we shall see in this comming weeks lesson. The followers of Christ were able to unite, in a common goal, as we will see in Acts, COL 9, and in Acts of the Apostles.