Abiding in Christ Is the Result of Obeying Christ
Abiding in Christ Is the Result of Obeying Christ
From playing baseball to flying a jet plane, every discipline in life has laws that must be obeyed if we want to succeed. I recall a bit of poetry a chemistry professor used to quote to his first-year classes:
O shed a tear for Jimmy Brown, for Jimmy is no more.
For what he thought was H2O was H2SO4. 1
If you want to succeed as a physician or a pharmacist, you must learn the properties of the various elements that make up the composition of medicine and take care that you combine only the elements that are friendly with each other. If you don’t, you may end up joining Jimmy Brown. Aspirin and arsenic both start with the letter A, but they have different properties. A jet pilot dare not violate the basic principles of aeronautics nor a winning athlete the official training rules and his coach’s orders. By obeying the fundamental laws that science has discovered or that governments have enacted, we have achieved a better standard of living and a generally safe environment. When we respect these laws, we are able to use the power and freedom that always follow obedience.
But there are also laws that govern our moral and spiritual lives, and if we ignore or disobey them, we will suffer and perhaps make others suffer. Jesus said, “If you keep my commands, you will remain [abide] in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love” (John 15:10). Jesus always did what pleased His Father (8:29), and if we want to abide in Him, we must follow His example. All of nature obeys the laws that God built into the universe, but when we interfere with those laws, serious consequences can occur.
It’s a basic rule of the Christian life that faith and obedience open the doors to God’s blessing. According to Romans 14:23, “everything that does not come from faith is sin.” No matter how good we may feel about doing something, unless faith in God’s Word supports our decision, what we do will only cause trouble. Abraham thought he could save his life by going to Egypt, and there he almost lost his wife and his own life (Gen. 12:10–20). Moses thought that killing a man would help deliver the Jews from Egypt, but it only led to his exile in Midian for forty years (Exod. 2:11–25). Samson thought he could fight the Lord’s battles by day and enjoy the pleasures of sin by night; but God thought differently, and the strong man only crippled himself and his ministry.
Disobedience to His commands interrupts our communion with Christ, and we lose the power to do His will. When that happens, we must instantly confess our sins to the Lord (1 John 1:9) and let the Lord cleanse and heal us. To attempt to live for Christ without walking with Christ in the Spirit is futile. Remember what He said: “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). This applies not only to our service for Christ but also to the everyday tasks of life. Nothing goes right when our hearts are wrong. Jonah was so sure things were going fine that he went down into the ship and went sound asleep (Jon. 1), but then he began to reap the consequences of his rebellion. The false peace and false confidence that follow willful disobedience don’t last long.