Obedience

Anchor Passages:
New Living Translation (©2007)

• Philippians 2:8

He humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross. ( NLT, 2007)

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  Romans 6:16 

¹⁶Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? (NIV)

•  I Samuel 15:22 

But Samuel replied: "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. ( NIV )

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Definition: 

The act of obeying, or the state of being obedient; compliance with that which is required by authority; subjection to rightful restraint or control. 

http://www.brainyquote.com/words/ob/obedience195278.html
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My Reflections:

Dogs can be trained to obey their handlers - in fact almost all animals are capable of such training. It still amazes me how wild elephants can be tamed and made to perform intricate roles at the circus, or how dogs can be trained to perform services such as guiding the blind through traffic jammed streets! It does appear to me sometimes that it's easy to teach obedience to an animal that it is to train myself into it. Paul tells us in Romans 6:16, that we obey whom we offer ourselves to. If we offer ourselves to God, we will learn to obey Him, otherwise, we will obey the whims of our sinful nature.

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Illustrations:

• On Dec. 4, 1893,  Walter Gowans and Rowland Bingham of Toronto, Canada, and Thomas Kent of  Buffalo, N.Y., landed at Lagos, Nigeria. Their aim was to establish a witness among the 60 million people of what was then commonly known as the Soudan, the area south of the Sahara between the Niger River and the Nile. Gowans and Kent died in the first few months. Bingham returned to Canada, formed a council, and went back to Africa in 1900. That attempt, too, was unsuccessful. In 1901 Bingham sent out a party that succeeded in establishing the Mission's first base, at Patigi, 500 miles up the Niger River. When these first SIM pioneers landed in Nigeria, Gowans was 25 years old, Bingham was two weeks away from his 21st birthday, Kent was 23.

It is not the multitude of hard duties, it is not constraint and contention that advance us in our Christian course. On the contrary, it is the yielding of our wills without restriction and without choice, to tread cheerfully every day in the path in which Providence leads us, to seek nothing, to be discouraged by nothing, to seek out duty in the present moment, to trust all else without reserve to the will and power of God.
Source Unknown.

• Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love. - Aristotle 

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Resources for further Reading: 

• The Pleasure of God in True Obedience
• The School of Obedience by Andrew Murray 

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Prayer

Dear Lord Jesus. Thank you for the lesson on Obedience.  I pray that you may help me to be Obedient to you everyday of my life, to do your Will whatever the cost. This I pray in Jesus' Name. Amen.
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