The Holy Spirit and Obedience
I like Today’s topic because we continue on the path we were talking about on day 4 and that is obedience to God.
One purpose of the Holy Spirit is to help us reflect Jesus more fully in our lives. Ellen White wrote in the book “Steps to Christ” “He
desires to restore you to Himself, to see His own purity and holiness reflected in you. And if you will but yield yourself to Him, He that hath begun a good work in you will carry it forward to the day of Jesus Christ. Pray more fervently {eagerly}; believe more fully”. God’s goal is that Christ be seen in us, that we would be a living letter revealing the character of Christ.
So we see two types of obedience to God, the 1st one is “external obedience” this one leads to legalism, and it does not matter wait faith you belong to, I have seen it in all religions. The believer obeys the law of God because he seeking the reward of salvation on that basis alone. The 2nd one is “internal obedience” this one occurs because of a deep, inter desire within the believer to obey God. Obedience that does not come from the heart is unacceptable to God.
We see this in (Matthew 15:8, 9) “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’”
When a person is right with God, the Holy Spirit fills him/her with the desire to be one with Christ, and they become like Christ and the obedience flows for the persons heart, without even thinking about it. When we know God as He wishes us too, Christ will show in our daily life, and we will become a walking testament to Him.
Supporting Scripture; (Eph. 5:18), (Ps. 51:16, 17)
Personal Reflection and Discussion
- From this lesson what are two purposes of receiving the Holy Spirit?
- What are two types of obedience that professed Christians can participate in?
- What kind of obedience does God desire?
- What kind of obedience do you practice?
Prayer Activities
- Call your Partner and discuss this devotional.
- Contact the people on your prayer list and let them know you are still praying for them.
- Pray with then and ask for the following;
- For God to continue to fill you and the people you are praying for with the Holy Spirit.
- For God to write His laws on your heart.
- For the individuals on your pray list.
- For God to continue to guide you with the Holy Spirit
- For today use the following Bible Verse in your prayer (Ps. 51:10-12)
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My favorite verse and one of the few I could quote, 1 Sam. 15:22 states that God is not after an action (or religion) what he’s after is obeidience and more so…a heeding. Like Ps.51 says a contrite and a broken heart. That’s an inward action, repentance, a change of heart. Really what it all comes down to is, that it has to be motivated by Love…and who is love? It has to come from the direct infuance of the Holy Spirit for it to count.
Now we think, what can we really boast in, it’s Christ in us and really through us. It’s al albout Love; love for God and love for mankind….in essence that’s how and why God wants us to do anything, especially worship Him. This is why nothing, including the Law, that could save us, except God/Love. What a God we serve!! Truely God is a God of Love and none other could ever compare. Outside of love, is only selfishness/sin…we really need Love in our hearts to save us from ourselves.
This study is my favorite so far, I hear how we as Seventh-day Adventist are legalistic. when the truth is that all we try to teach is love of God. If you fill your life with God the rest will follow. Yes there are those that will move to the legalistic side, but I see that in every religion. Love God interlay and you will know the truth.
When I first read this it came to me that for so long I was the external one. All my life friends and family would say, “oh such a good child or, there’s a place in heaven for her”. It was all on the outside though. I knew what people wanted but I didn’t know what God wanted. Praise God, he did not leave me to just please people. I pray that all those I love come to this realization and become internal for our Lord!
Too many times we live the external life, we live for other, ourselves but we forget about God. When we change that our lives become so much more rich.
The first time i stepped on an Adventist church wwas not because i had learned anything about it but because i wanted to run away from working on the farm on Saturday. Time went by and i learned the truth and it felt good and since then i have obeyed that truth. The sprit will help us be obedient to Gods truth, but we need to be very careful also because the devil is very manipulative and he can make a person be obedient to false teaching. God used to communicate with Adam and Eve directly, after the fall role shifted we show our loyalty to Him by obeying. Lets ask His Sprit to help s always to be obedient.
I like your Comment about the Devil and How he can lead us to false teachings, we must always read the Bible for ourselves and weed out the false teachings to find the truth.
A friend of mine heard a pastor say something and the first thing he did was go home and look it up, to see if what he had heard was true. I cdould not be more proud of this person, because we need to all be like that, young and old.
If you get nothing else out of this study rember this . “Bible and Bible only” if the Bible does not say it, then it is not true.
Yes, I think we need to be obeident as part of that faith/work equation. If we say we have faith and yet not do it we are liars. We either trust and obey God or we really don’t trust since we don’t obey… with the exception of the truly confused, God judges the heart.
how did I post as Joseph??
Ok I think I got it back??