Friday, July 18, 2014

We have no excuse

'Obedience is love, fulfilling every command, love expressing itself. Obedience, therefore, is not a hard demand made upon us, any more than is the service a husband renders his wife, or a wife renders her husband. Love delights to obey, and please whom it loves. There are no hardships in love. There may be exactions, but no irk. There  are no impossible tasks for love.'

(My interjection- All too often today the 'obey' part of wedding vows is left out, why? What does that tell us? It tells us that more and more mankind has inched away from the belief they need to obey anyone.  Seriously. Children are more defiant than ever refusing to obey not only parents but teachers as well. People are more defiant to law enforcement as well. They defy so many and believe they have the right to do so, because they will not be treated what they call 'disrespectfully'. And if they are told to do something they believe it has to be in the proper manner, do not dare give an order but rather a request. Do you see what we've done? We've made the word 'obey' into something bad, something overbearing and too controlling. Telling someone you obey your spouse would garner some very strange reactions. And now we are left with being told we should obey God and right away Satan is there to tell us obeying is for those who cannot think for themselves. Satan tells us we shouldn't have to obey anyone, we should actually be the one obeyed, or at the very least able to live in obedience only to our own selves. )

'This is obedience, running ahead of all and every command. It is love, obeying by anticipation. They greatly err, and even sin, who declare that men are bound to commit iniquity, either because of environment, or heredity, or tendency. God's commands are not grievous. Their ways are ways of pleasantness, and their paths peace. The task which falls to obedience is not a hard one. "For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."  

Far be it from our heavenly Father, to demand impossibilities of His children. It is possible to please Him in all things, for He is not hard to please. He is neither a hard master, nor an austere lord, "taking up that which he lays not down, and reaping that which he did not sow." Thank God, it is possible for every child of God, to please his heavenly Father! It is really much easier to please Him than to please men. Moreover, we may know when we please Him. This is the witness of the Spirit -- the inward Divine assurance, given to all the children of God that they are doing their Father's will, and that their ways are well-pleasing in His sight.

(My interjection-  This is truth- it is MUCH easier to please God than to please men! This is so true!)

'God's commandments are righteous and founded in justice and wisdom. "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." Rom_7:12 "Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints." Rev_15:3 God's commandments, then, can be obeyed by all who seek supplies of grace which enable them to obey. These commandments must be obeyed. God's government is at stake. God's children are under obligation to obey Him; disobedience cannot be permitted. The spirit of rebellion is the very essence of sin. It is repudiation of God's authority, which God cannot tolerate. He never has done so, and a declaration of His attitude was part of the reason the Son of the Highest was made manifest among men: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

If any should complain that humanity, under the fall, is too weak and helpless to obey these high commands of God, the reply is in order that, through the atonement of Christ, man is enabled to obey. The Atonement is God's Enabling Act. That which God works in us, in regeneration and through the agency of the Holy Spirit, bestows enabling grace sufficient for all that is required of us, under the Atonement. This grace is furnished without measure, in answer to prayer. So that, while God commands, He, at the same time, stands pledged to give us all necessary strength of will and grace of soul to meet His demands. This being true, man is without excuse for his disobedience
and eminently censurable for refusing, or failing, to secure requisite grace, whereby he may serve the Lord with reverence, and with godly fear.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 51)

(My interjections continued…

'The Atonement is God's enable act' !  TRUTH! We are without excuse!  We cannot willfully disobey and claim the commandments are too hard, they are too unjust for us. Our GOD divested Himself of divinity and relied solely upon the power of the Father God to keep the commandments and because He did that we too are able to keep the commandments, and we do it by the GRACE our Savior gives to us.  More on all of this tomorrow, by the grace of God!

We cannot excuse away our sinning, it doesn't work.

In HIS amazing love!

Bless us Lord! Keep us Lord!

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