Bible Reading: Romans 7:14-8:8
Most Christians want to obey God. They want to do things that make God happy such as helping people, going to church, reading the Bible, Memorizing scripture, and praying.
So, if we, as Christians, want to do what is good, right, and holy, why don’t we do it? There are two reasons:
First, we allow other people to put up obstacles between us and what God wants us to do. For example, people may tell us that we aren’t capable of obeying God. They may try to load our schedules with “good” things that aren’t God’s best for our lives. They may try to distract us by trying to make us feel guilty for spending time with God or doing the things God wants us to do rather than spending time with them.
Second, we put up obstacles ourselves between us and what God wants us to do. We overcommit and use time that should be given to God for other pursuits. We dabble in things that are fun or interesting or good, but swallow up our God-time. We make excuses: Bible study/memorization is too hard, too boring, too confusing. I’m too tired. I don’t feel up to it. Maybe tomorrow.
Satan takes advantages of all these obstacles. He uses them to keep us from being all God wants us to be, to prevent us from growing as close to God as we can grow, and to stop us from being effective witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Romans 8:1 Paul said, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” Paul knew that the way that he could get past doing what he wanted and be truly doing what God wants is to let God live through him. It is Jesus Christ, working in and through Paul – and us – that enables us to get past the obstacles in our lives and get on living in genuine, complete obedience to God.
Examine your life. Find the obstacles that are keeping you from living the holy, abundant life of obedience to God that God wants you to be living. When you find them, do whatever is necessary to remove them from your life. Once you do, you will be able to live the
“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.” Romans 8:9
Prayer: Heavenly Father, help me to remove all the obstacle in my life that are keeping me from completely obeying You. In Jesus' name. Amen.