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True obedience comes from the heart — ADvindicate

Sat, 24 Jan 2015 20:07:27 GMT

Mark Paden
Tue, 27 Jan 2015 05:09:08 GMT

I appreciate all of your comments. I feel that some further clarifications and enumerations are required. Firstly, let me establish this basic Bible truth: obedience is required for salvation. “While good works will not save even one soul, yet it is impossible for even one soul to be saved without good works” (Ellen G. White, Faith and Works, 111). I in no way espouse the fallacy that we should cease to obey, no matter the reason. Period. Secondly, there are three different ideas being discussed in this article and comment section. Two are ditches, one is the truth. The ideas are: 1) Choosing to obey regardless of desire; 2) Obeying only if the body feels like it; 3) Obeying with a disposition of mind which desires to obey. In all reality, these are just different ways of stating the age-old debate over obedience. Let’s break each one down. First, the idea of obeying regardless of desire. In this idea, when temptation is felt, one will endeavor to simply choose to do what is right even if his mind and bodily feelings go against what is right. So, if he is tempted t o lust after someone, and his mind wants to lust after the person, he will attempt to force himself not to. Second, obeying only if the body feels like it. In this idea, one lets himself be led entirely by feelings. In our previous scenario, if his body started to be aroused and his mind wanted to sin, even though he knows God’s command not to, he will sin basing it on the fact that he wanted to. Third, obeying with a disposition of mind which desires to obey. In this idea (which I believe is what the Bible teaches), one chooses to trust in God to change his disposition of mind, God changes His mind to want to obey, and then He obeys. When he is tempted to lust, and his body wants to lust, and his mind wants to lust, He realizes that deep down He wants to obey God. Therefore, he goes to God in prayer and claims in faith His promise that “all true obedience comes form the heart.” God then changes his mind (and sometimes even his bodily feelings) to want to do God’s will. He then chooses to do what is right because God has changed his heart to desire to do what is right. Let me further back up why I believe this option to be correct. If “all true obedience comes from the heart” it would be logical to conclude that if it is not from the heart, it is false. Therefore, if we want to render acceptable service to God, we must obey because it is our desire to obey. However, the Bible plainly teaches that obedience is required of all who will see everlasting life. So we have ourselves a problem: How do we obey from the heart? The Bible also plainly teaches that God will change our desires and disposition of mind. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” God’s promise is to change our desires and will. God keeps His promises, but His promises are based on our faith. “According to your faith be it unto you”; “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord” (Matthew 9:29; James 1:5-7). When we go to God and claim His promises in faith, the promised result is sure to take place. In this case, it is sure that God will change our hearts to desire to serve Him and our wills to delight in His service. However, their is a distinction that I have hinted at that needs to be made plain. Our minds can delight in something our bodies may not delight in. Notice, in the quote from The Desire of Ages page 668, God reveals to us that “The will, refined and sanctified, will find its highest delight in doing His service.” Notice what finds delight in the service of God–our will power. It is our power of choice that will delight to obey, not necessarily our bodily feelings. This is also shown in Romans 7 where Paul says that “to will is present with me” and that “I delight in the law of God after the inward man,” but that “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (18, 22, 23). His problem here is “how to perform that which is good” (18). The whole issue comes down to trust. Do we really trust–rely and depend upon–God to fulfill the promises of His Word; or do we feel safer depending on our ability to overcome our mind? It was when Abraham and Sarah believed the promise of God to give them an heir that she conceived and bore a son and called His name Isaac. Similarly, it is when we believe that God will do what He has promised that we will receive the promise. Here is why I am so adamant about this. The idea that we can serve God acceptably by forcing ourselves, against our will, to obey, is legal religion at its very core. Legal religion is attempting to obey as a way of meriting salvation and is based on the human’s ability to produce that obedience. Genuine religion is trusting wholly in the merits of a crucified and risen Savior and relying on God to give us the power to obey. Therefore, if we are living a legal religion, when we are faced with temptation, we will have the mindset that if we fall, we will not have enough merit to enter heaven, and we will not look to God and His ability to keep us from falling. Because we don’t see that God is able to keep us and change our desires, we therefore attempt to force ourselves to obey. As we gain a certain level of what seems to be success, we begin to trust in that and cling to that ability to do right, even though we are miserable. However, this is not “true obedience.” I submit that this way is most depressing and burdensome. This is why it is so hard to accept that God will change our desires and give us an inclination and power to obey: it requires complete reliance on a power entirely outside of ourselves. This, I believe, is the core of the whole problem. let me close this comment with a story recorded in the book of Haggai. The people had been neglecting to build the house of the Lord, so God was causing them to fail in the things that they did, and so He showed them that they needed to obey Him. After convicting them, He gave them the assurance that He was with them, and then the Bible records this beautiful testimony: “And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king” (1:14-15). Notice, the timeline: God convicted them, God assured them of His love, God changed their mind, will, and emotions to loving obedience, and then they did what God asked them to do. He worked in their spirit before they obeyed, not after. Lastly, let me just say that I am a mere man. I do not claim to be the perfect Bible student. However, my views on this topic have come from many hours and days and months of wrestling with God. I do not espouse it as a way to get around obedience, but rather as a way to enable obedience. I have found that this alone has brought me peace, and the other, nothing but fear. It is my prayer that God will guide each of each of us to the center of His will. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen.

Mark Paden
Tue, 27 Jan 2015 05:24:29 GMT

A couple more notes: OurSword, you said, "So if we should wait to do good until God provides the right motivation and heart, then when we feel like doing evil, it is God's fault for not changing our heart." Are you expecting God not to do what He promised to do? His promise is to change our hearts when we consent. So if we consent, our hearts will be changed, and we will delight to obey. Your premise is an absence of the power of God. Bob Ryan, you said, "It was a 'struggle with God to give up His Son' and a struggle for Christ who prayed 'if it be possible let this cup pass from Me'." Neither in my article nor in my life do I espouse the idea that there is not a struggle in the Christian walk. However, we must be sure of how we struggle. Paul counsels us in 1 Timothy 6:12 to "fight the good fight of faith"; and Christ says to "Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation" (Mark 14:38). The battle is fought on our knees through faith in the sure promises of Jehovah.

George Evans
Tue, 27 Jan 2015 07:18:02 GMT

Pardon me, OurSword, I thought we were talking about victory over sin, not just staying out of jail.

collins
Tue, 27 Jan 2015 16:50:40 GMT

Excellent article. Choosing to "obey" when we don't want to obey is beneficial in some ways: fewer people get hurt, fewer people end up in prison, an education may be gained, etc.... Even the wicked "obey" in this manner, and there is a benefit. But it is not righteousness. It is not saving faith, conversion, etc. Jesus prefers the wicked obey---even without conversion of heart, and this is for the general benefits which result to society and His people in the world. He would prefer, much more, that their hearts are changed, of course, and that they would be saved, and their obedience come from the heart. But, that won't happen, with most. So, fear takes its place in producing a semblance of human society in a demon-possessed world. "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children..." (Matthew 7:11)

Bruno
Wed, 28 Jan 2015 05:08:54 GMT

Great article. It seems that most of the commentators are not assuming that the author is talking from the perspective of a child of God who experiences the reality that "the old man" is still around, and there is a war on, between the Spirit and the Flesh. I read the article from the point of view of a born again child of God who is yearning for the complete possession of his soul by Christ, through the Holy Spirit. In this context, I think the model is the choir of Israel leading into battle against the enemy. II Chron. 20:17-24

Gerry Wagoner
Thu, 29 Jan 2015 01:51:20 GMT

Appreciate the thought-provoking article, Mark. Hopefully it is the first of many.

Bryan-G
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 05:26:22 GMT

> @markapaden > The Bible also plainly teaches that God will change our desires and disposition of mind. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” But even with this, you will still be tempted, and with the overall meaning of this article, one might be inclined to just look at the temptation as "not what my heart desires" and then fall. > @markapaden > If “all true obedience comes from the heart” it would be logical to conclude that if it is not from the heart, it is false. Therefore, if we want to render acceptable service to God, we must obey because it is our desire to obey. It doesn't matter if its false, you obey, then, after time it will be in your heart. You don't change over night, so as you're working on becoming better, you still obey. Even if it's false, isn't it for the right reason? To do God's will? So true or false, it's still good, and eventually your brain will have new neural pathways and eventually it will be natural and "in your heart". > @markapaden > when we are faced with temptation, we will have the mindset that if we fall, we will not have enough merit to enter heaven, This is where we use our understanding of "grace". Instead of looking at this as you do, that obeying, if not from the heart, is false. We need to look at it this way, we obey with the things that ARE in our heart, then, with the things that we don't feel are in our heart we also obey and have the knowledge we are still under God's grace through Jesus if we fail. Even if we do obey, that will not get us salvation. So, if there is a worry about "the mindset that if we fall, we will not have enough merit to enter heaven" then it doesn't matter what reason we obey for, we're still not understanding why Jesus died on the cross. I don't obey because it's from the heart (even though it is), and I don't obey out of fear, I just obey because I love God. If I feel it was against my heart, then I have bigger problems and need some prayer.

George Evans
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 14:58:25 GMT

Bryan-G wrote, >But even with this, you will still be tempted… But the temptations from within will diminish and there will come a time when they are gone, or else the sanctuary will never be clean. Temptation can still come without, but the cup can be cleaned on the inside. >It doesn't matter if its false, you obey, then, after time it will be in your heart. The heart doesn't work that way. If you grit your teeth and force your heart to outwardly obey, it will become angrier and angrier. The person may even succeed at silence their angry heart and locking it in the back room. But they will join the ranks of angry saints sitting there with upside-down smiles in church. >…eventually it will be natural and “in your heart”. I think God and Ellen White know better about how your heart works than you do.

Bryan-G
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 22:18:35 GMT

> @georgethe54th > . If you grit your teeth and force your heart to outwardly obey, it will become angrier and angrier. So, you believe you don't have to obey if you don't feel like it, either you're going against me just to start trouble, or you are really lost. God did not give us his rules then say, follow them only if you feel like it. Are we to take Gods rules and think about whether following them is coming from our heart or not? If this is what you go through every time you think about sinning, then you don't know God or have love. I can't believer that a Seventh-day Adventist can feel that every time they're tempted by sin, they get to decide if it's in their heart to obey, and if not, they can just sin. So is this how you really feel? if it's not in your heart, you don't need to obey God?? > @bryan-g > eventually it will be natural and “in your heart”. > @georgethe54th > I think God and Ellen White know better about how your heart works than you do. What makes you think Ellen White knows more than me about how the heart works? She's just a person like me, and you don't know me. Are you one of those that puts her as something more than a normal person? She's a sinner just like the rest of us, she's not divine, just a person. You don't have to be knowledgeable on all things to prophesy. You don't need to be a genius to prophesy. When she prophesies she's just telling us what God told here, it's not some ideas she has because she's smarter than me or you or anyone, she's just repeating what God told her to say, and anyone can do that. As far as God knowing more than me on how the heart works, of course he does, but how does that make what I said wrong? If I say you should not murder are you going to say God knows more about killing than I do? Of course. So what is your point?

George Evans
Sun, 01 Feb 2015 18:53:51 GMT

Bryan-G wrote, >So, you believe you don't have to obey if you don't feel like it, either you're going against me just to start trouble, or you are really lost. It's even worse than that. I really don't think God is satisfied with my obedience if it doesn't come from a cheerful heart. I don't believe He wants to force heaven on us if we don't want to be there. It sounds like you're just into saving your own skin. You are sticking with God because He has the only house still standing in the end. >God did not give us his rules then say, follow them only if you feel like it. And He didn't say follow them or else. >Are we to take Gods rules and think about whether following them is coming from our heart or not? Is that too much of a bother to you? >I can't believe that a Seventh-day Adventist can feel that every time they're tempted by sin, they get to decide… Pardon me for interrupted your sentence right there, but I wanted you to think of what you are starting to say. It sounds like you don't think very highly of free choice. Is that true in you personal relationships. For example, would you want your wife to act like she loves you even if she didn't, in her heart?

Bryan-G
Mon, 02 Feb 2015 01:48:55 GMT

This whole conversation is foolish. If you have a renewed heart, then it will be your desire to obey. If it is not in your heart to obey, then you are not with God, Jesus is not with you, you know not the Holy Spirit. > @georgethe54th >It sounds like you're just into saving your own skin. I love God so I do as he asks without question. Because I love him I don't try and use my intellect to justify sinning as you and this article suggests, I just obey what he commands. It's not my place to question God, he knows more than I could ever begin to, I don't just love him, I trust him, so I obey him because he knows what is best. Do you teach your children to only obey you “if it's in their heart”? >@georgethe54th >And He didn't say follow them or else. You obey God because you love him, well, I do, you on the other hand, feel the need to be threatened before you'll follow.. >@georgethe54th >Is that true in you personal relationships. For example, would you want your wife to act like she loves you even if she didn't, in her heart? This doesn't even relate to anything. You can' t act to love God, he sees what's in your heart. So this is enlightening George, you're just acting, and because you can't fool God, you must be pretending to love God so you can fool people on earth. This explains your pro abortion stance, as well as being pro women's ordination, you only care about what you want/think, what's in your heart, not what God desires. that leads to this: > @georgethe54th > you don't think very highly of free choice. Yes, I think highly of it, but you are confused about the real choice here. The choice isn't about obeying, it's about who you worship. If you worship God, that is the choice, and obeying follows. If you don't obey it's not because you chose not to obey, it's because you chose not to accept Jesus into your heart, then disobeying comes naturally. No, if my wife doesn't love me I don't want her to pretend, by this you must be saying that you don't want to obey because you don't love God, you're just pretending. If you love him, you obey him. If you feel you don't have obey because it's not in your heart, then Jesus is not in your heart and you don't love him. If you teach your children to obey you only if it's in their heart, then you're a rotten parent and your kids are/will be rotten kids. _Mark 7 6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. 9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition._

George Evans
Mon, 02 Feb 2015 08:00:40 GMT

Bryan-G wrote, >If you have a renewed heart, then it will be your desire to obey. Yes, I agree. This is the ideal. >If it is not in your heart to obey, then you are not with God, Jesus is not with you, you know not the Holy Spirit. I cannot agree with this. The person described in Romans 7:15-25 is with God and knows His law and wants to follow it. But there is another law in his lower nature at war with the law in his mind. In verse 18 he says, "to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find." Unconsciously his lower nature or heart was not in agreement with his higher nature or mind. I believe Paul was describing himself every morning before he died to self which he said he did daily. >you must be pretending to love God… I haven't said any such thing. And I would never say it about the man in Romans 7. To be pretending he would have to know his heart but he says in verse 15, "For what I am doing, I do not understand."

Arik Warwick
Mon, 02 Feb 2015 10:27:58 GMT

> @georgethe54th > The person described in Romans 7:15-25 is with God and knows His law and wants to follow it. But there is another law in his lower nature at war with the law in his mind. In verse 18 he says, “to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.” Unconsciously his lower nature or heart was not in agreement with his higher nature or mind. The person in Romans 7 is convicted but not converted. This is why his lower nature (lusts of the flesh where sin dwells) is not in subjection to his higher nature (reason, conscience, determination). Look at vs 5: "When we were in the flesh, the sinful passions (lower nature) which were aroused by the law, were at work in our members (lusts of the flesh) to bear fruit unto death." This is the condition the man of Romans 7:15-25 finds hiimself. He has been aroused by the law (convicted), yet the law of sin still rules (not converted). Due to our sinful nature, without Christ, the power to perform what is good is not found even though we may know what is good. Conversion is the key, when we give our will to do good (which itself is a gift from God Phil 2:13) to Christ, it is He that dwell in our inner man (reason, conscience, determination) and brings our lusts of the flesh into subjection to His will.

George Evans
Mon, 02 Feb 2015 22:07:11 GMT

Arik, we may be in a bit of a semantic dispute on the question of the conversion of the man in Romans 7. You direct our attention to verse 5 but I see in verse 6, "But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter," and so the rest of the chapter can also be seen as post-conversion. Since Paul says he died daily, it makes since to understand that the struggle of Romans 7:15-25 is a daily thing for converts. I know it is for me.

Doug Yowell
Tue, 03 Feb 2015 00:02:28 GMT

> @awarwick > The person in Romans 7 is convicted but not converted What about the man in the article?

Arik Warwick
Tue, 03 Feb 2015 11:12:15 GMT

_"Arik, we may be in a bit of a semantic dispute on the question of the conversion of the man in Romans 7. You direct our attention to verse 5 but I see in verse 6, “But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter,” and so the rest of the chapter can also be seen as post-conversion. Since Paul says he died daily, it makes since to understand that the struggle of Romans 7:15-25 is a daily thing for converts. I know it is for me._" It is not a matter of semantics George. The condition of Romans 7:5 is before conversion, vs 6 is after. Also the pre conversion condition that vs 5 explains is the same condition the man finds himself in the rest of the chapter: The condition: Vs 5-"For when we were in the flesh the sinful passions ...were at work in our members", vs 14 "....I am carnal sold under sin", vs "For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) nothing good dwells," vs 18 "but the evil I will not to do, that I practice vs 23 "....bringing me in to captivity to the law of sin." Conviction: vs 5 "....the sinful passions which were aroused by the law," "vs 9 "...when the commandment came, sin revived and I died," "vs 13 ...so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful." The Remedy: vs 6 "...having died to what we were held to...serve in the newness of the Spirit.." vs 8:1 "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk acording to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." It's as simple as simple can be. The law of God convicts us, shows our wretched condition. We are powerless to keep the law because we posess the law of sin in our nature. Only by giving our will to God can we have victory over the law of sin and walk according to the Spirit.

George Evans
Tue, 03 Feb 2015 15:47:21 GMT

Arik, the great difference between verse 5 and the end of the chapter is awareness of the psychological problem. The big pivot begins in verse 15 with Paul's tacit questions, What is wrong with me? Why isn't this working? He writes, "For what I am doing, I do not understand." So he becomes the world's first psychologist by analyzing himself and eventually comes up with the daily pill he needs. It is indeed as simple as simple can be. As you say, "We are powerless to keep the law because we possess the law of sin in our…" back rooms. The guy living back there is obeying a different law and it's messing up our new life. We need Jesus to deal with him. I call my guy Harry. The most important thing I have learned about Harry is that he hates the gospel. So I just asked Jesus to put him down, again.

Arik Warwick
Tue, 03 Feb 2015 17:26:26 GMT

I know George we have had this discussion before, but honestly Paul does not make a distinction between back room and front room. His distinction is his will vs his nature. He has been convicted, he recognizes the law as holy and good, however he has no power to resist the law of sin that dwells in the lusts of the flesh. Paul is simply and deliberately emphasizing the power of the Gospel as the only remedy to our sinful nature. Anything less is futile, frustrating and annoying even. Sounds to me like Harry needs to be converted.

George Evans
Tue, 03 Feb 2015 21:40:50 GMT

Arik wrote, >I know George we have had this discussion before, but honestly Paul does not make a distinction between back room and front room. He doesn't use sanctuary specific terminology here but he does use it about a decade later in Hebrews 9 speaking of the conscience.

trish11
Tue, 24 Jul 2018 13:46:08 GMT

This is a beautiful article. I do believe that God doesn't want us to merely control our behavior on the surface but for it to come from a desire deep within. You do a beautiful job of explaining that.

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