Obey God

Central to Scripture’s teachings is the understanding that our relationship with God is based on grace: “For it is by grace you have been saved…not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).. Paul again addressed boasting when he wrote that he would “never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14). We stand before God, not because we have been good, but because the cross of Christ has brought about needed justification and reconciliation. This teaching, though, is often grossly misunderstood and misapplied. Scripture does not teach that obedience is optional. Jude boldly challenges what is often referred to as licentiousness—using grace as a license to sin—when he wrote about an “ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude 1:4). The cross of Christ is not a license to get away from God, so we can do our own thing. The cross of Christ is a license to get close to God, so we can follow him and obey him, because God’s ways are good. Authentic followers of Christ come to Christ, because they are fed up with the corruption in this world and in their own lives, and they ache to be free from it. Freedom is not freedom to sin, because we love sin, but freedom from sin, because we hate sin. Grace, in Scripture, is not only described as the gift of God’s forgiveness, but Scripture tells us that “the grace of God has appeared…and teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” (Titus 2:11-12).