I wait for your salvation, O LORD, and I follow your commands. Psalm 119:166
Obedience…such a great concept but hard to follow up on. We all want to be obedient and do the right thing. Sometimes that is not always the easiest thing to do. We have times where we want to do our own thing whether it is right or not.
John gives us these words to remember in 1 John 3:21-23:
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
Our obedience allows us to pray to God and receive from Him anything we ask. His response may not be in the way we would expect it or want it to be, but He will respond. How do we get this privilege, though?
We see in 1 John we are to obey God’s commands and do what pleases Him. But what are those commands? We are to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ and to love one another. Believing that Jesus is God’s Son is crucial to living an obedient life for God. If we don’t believe, then we are not God’s children. Loving one another is so important to God. It’s by our love to others that the world will know we belong to God.
The verses in 1 John also tell us that God will give us what we ask of Him if our hearts do not condemn us. That means we are praying in God’s will and in accordance to what He wants for us. Therefore, our desires are His desires.
Take time today to read your Bible and search out God’s desires. Then, be obedient by making sure you have a relationship with His Son, Jesus, and are willing to love others.
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