Quotes about Obedience

Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around the same two themes: why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge.

We, Jesus' followers, are the agents assigned to carry out God's will on earth. Too easily we expect God to do something for us when instead God wants to do it through us.

In a sort of negative proof of the power of prayer, three times God commanded Jeremiah to stop praying; God wanted no alteration in his plans to punish a rebellious nation.

I do not get to know God, then do God's will; I get to know God by doing that will.

We exercise faith by responding to the task that lies before us.

The law did not encourage obedience, rather it magnified disobedience. Law merely indicated the sickness; grace brought about the cure.

Christians tend to be Augustinian in theory but Pelagian in practice. They work obsessively to please other people and even God.

In the Christian scheme of things, this world and the time spent here are not all there is. Earth is a proving ground, a dot in eternity — albeit an important dot, for Jesus said our destiny depends on our obedience here.

We think we know what we want. In reality we should want nothing else but to be completely in line with His desires for us and His purposes in our generation. So we must resolve to let God be God on His terms, not ours.

But a free woman possesses the God-given ability to know when He is truly asking her to do something—as well as the God-given ability to know when He's not. Then she has the God-given discernment to know her limits and the authority to know when she needs "to cease, to stop, to pause"—accepting the gentle yoke of Jesus instead of the tyrannical yoke of slavery. "For My yoke is easy," He said, "and My burden is light" (Matt. 11:30).

Making sense of God's call is not a prerequisite for following it. His Word and His promises are enough.

Elisabeth Elliot, has said, "One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was, 'Do the next thing.'" Instead of getting all hung up on looking for the grand scope of God's will for your life, just do what He's called you to do right now. That's all that really matters. Now.