From “If” to “Only”

Deuteronomy 28:1-2 (New Living Translation)
28 “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. ² You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:

Anyone familiar with the promises of God are equally familiar with the conditional warning of “If you fully obey.” This conditional warning is found frequently in the Old Testament, and has led many believers to put an emphasis on the obedience part of God’s commands to the point of letting the promises fade into the background. Doing so can hinder the life God wants us to have.

The key to living in balance in the scriptures is to follow the Word’s directive to “rightly divide the Word of God (2 Timothy 2:15).  We need to always be mindful that the path to obedience changed from the Old Testament to the New. In the Old Testament and up to the death of Jesus on the Cross, the responsibility for obedience was placed on man. God’s blessings only came when man was obedient to what God said. That rarely happened. Why did God place a demand on man that he could not keep? The Law’s purpose was to make man realize his total dependence on God and turn to Him. This also rarely happened.

When Jesus died on the Cross He was in perfect obedience to His Father’s will. Think back to the Garden of Gethsemane where He was praying to His Father asking to have the cup (what He was about to face) removed, but ended by saying “not my will, but Yours be done.” That act of obedience, followed by His dying on the Cross, satisfied God’s demand on man to be obedient in his own efforts. What man had never been able to do, Jesus did. His victory in being fully obedient now becomes our victory in being fully obedient.

Does that mean we no longer have to obey the directives of God? Absolutely not! What it means is that we no longer have to try to be obedient through our own efforts. We now trust that Jesus, through Holy Spirit, will help us be obedient.  New Covenant obedience now rests in John 6:28-29. To do the works of God (which always includes being obedient to His Word), we only have to believe in Jesus.

 It is safe to say that the subject of “obedience” has caused believers to stumble and distance themselves from God because they so often feel they have failed in that area. The Good News of the Gospel is that obedience is no longer a “monkey on our backs.” We are credited with being obedient when we “only believe” in Jesus and trust Him to help us do what is impossible on our own. When the truth of that settles in our hearts, obedience will become second-nature to us; something to be embraced and not to be held at arm’s-length!

John 6:28-29 (New Living Translation)
²⁸ They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?”²⁹ Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.” 

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