The Cause of Obedience

Mar 18, 2025 | by Major Bradley Caldwell

Major Bradley J. Caldwell

Retired Officer

USA Southern Territory

Scripture: John 14:21-24; Matthew 23:23-26; Luke 10:25-37; Ezekiel 36:26-27

We in the Church accept with little argument that we should obey God, but we can disagree wildly as to what most influences our response to such a conviction. During the 1960’s and 70’s variety television host Flip Wilson inhabited a comical character named Geraldine who routinely excused her bad behavior with the catchphrase, “The devil made me do it!” I have never heard someone conversely account for righteous behavior by claiming, “God made me do it.” But nearly everyone who endeavors to obey God’s direction does so in accord with one or more influences, the most dominant being duty and self-interest, both of which are flawed behavioral motivators.

Duty

God’s law encapsulates His expectations for His followers, and many of these followers attempt to let their sense of duty to that law act as their guide. But duty’s primary shortcoming as a behavioral compass is that the dutiful person commonly makes private decisions regarding what is and is not essential duty before God. Jesus confronts such a mindset in Matthew 23:23: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”

Self-Interest

Self-interest fares no better than does duty as a reliable instigator of Christian obedience. During Jesus’ story in Luke 10 of a critically injured man and the other travelers who come across his helpless form, we see how self-interest can compete with itself and undermine holy obedience. Both the priest and the Levite in Jesus’ parable represent religious vocations wherein witnessing another’s suffering should command these men’s attention. As spiritual leaders it is in their interest to personally demonstrate compassion. But as accountable members of the Jewish faith, they also need to maintain ceremonial cleanliness, and interacting with the injured man will undo their cleanliness, necessitating disruptive ritual washing and lengthy separation from the general population.  These men clearly elect to serve their more convenient interests while they neglect what should prove their more important one. Put differently, self-interest trumps self-sacrifice.

Love

There is at least one further behavioral motivator that prompts obedience to God, and that is love. Jesus concretely invokes this in John 14:21a: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.” At first glance Jesus may seem merely to substitute love for either duty or self-interest as a selfish factor, but to the contrary, love succeeds where these others fail. This success comes from two factors directly related to God’s commands: their placement and execution.

The Center of Our Devotion

When Jesus speaks in John 14:21a of believer who “has” His commands, where within the believer do those commands reside? They could be in his mind. If one reads the Bible and respects the God it portrays, he could act on those commands on his grasp of what they say. “Do not kill,” means exactly that: avoid willfully taking another’s life.

God’s commands could be in the believer’s emotions. He could feel that he should feed poor people, so he makes some sandwiches to distribute at a local homeless encampment. Or he could feel that adultery is very bad and should be avoided based on the intensity of that feeling.

But both such views of God’s commands in mind and emotion presume that those commands were received and acted on naturally, whereas Jesus proposes something far more supernatural. John Wesley believes that when Jesus speaks of “whoever has” His commands, He intends that this believer has God’s commands in his spiritual heart. This believer does not merely understand their intended actions or feel their degree of significance. The believer with God’s commands in His heart has recognized them by an act of God’s divine revelation. Only this revelation enables God’s followers to embrace His commands’ holy design. Wesley’s interpretation echoes God’s promise to the prophet Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws,” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

This prophecy declares that we will receive and obey God’s commands in our heart. Our hearts, however, cannot obey God until they are pure, undivided, and fit to receive God’s Spirit as a holy inhabitant. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees who feign obedience with self-serving hearts: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.  Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean,” (Matthew 23:25-26).

The How of Obedience

As mentioned earlier, how we carry out God’s commands strongly influences our success in doing so. We can obey God more fully when we remember that His commands are more than a random assortment of moral remedies. For example, you can unite knock-knock jokes, one-liners, puns, pranks, satire, and slapstick under the singular banner of humor. Similarly, Jesus categorically condenses all God’s commands into two, both of which are comprised of holy love: “’What is written in the Law?’ he replied. ‘How do you read it?’ He answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ‘You have answered correctly, Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live.’” (Luke 10:26-27).

What does this mean? All true obedience to God transpires because of love and by means of love. Jesus makes this clear: “Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching’” (John 14:23-24). I note as many others have that the so-called “Good Samaritan” in Luke 10 is never described as “good” by the original text. In truth, we find the love of God influencing his response to the wounded man. Luke 25:33 states that the Samaritan “took pity on him,” but the Greek grammar is more accurately rendered, “was involuntarily moved to compassion.”

The Spirit of God acted upon the Samaritan’s heart, after which he responded lovingly to the wounded man. The same Greek word for being moved is used to describe Jesus’ reaction to pitiable lepers and the desperate crowd of people who were like sheep lacking a shepherd. Obedience to God does not mean qualifying for His approval by choosing from a collection of pious behavioral options. It means trustingly embracing that all His directions to us work in one direction—to magnify our loving experience and expression of Him, the one Who is love.

Our Corporate Prayer

Dear Lord, as you examine my heart, let me see what You see about my motivations. Do I obey You out of dry duty or selfish self-interest? I want it to be out of my love for You, with my whole heart that has been cleansed by Your Holy Spirit, the natural response to Your presence in my life. Align my heart with Yours, dear Lord, so that the only consideration is pleasing You. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Our Worldwide Prayer Meeting
Bangladesh Territory

Thinking It Through

So often we do things without thinking why we are doing them. As you work for the Lord this week, try to stop and ask yourself why you are doing this act now? Is it only duty? Is it self-interest? Is it love? Or is it a combination of any of these?

Notable Quotables

We have resorted to every means to win back the position that Adam lost. We have tried through education, through philosophy, through religion, through governments to throw off our yoke of depravity and sin. All our knowledge, all our inventions, all our developments and ambitious plans move us ahead only a very little before we drop back again to the point from which we started. For we are still making the same mistake that Adam made - we are still trying to be king in our own right, and with our own power, instead of obeying God's law. - Billy Graham

We would appreciate any feedback and/or suggestions on how to improve these devotionals. Please email comments to: SpiritualLifeDevelopment@uss.salvationarmy.org or by going to our website: https://southernusa.salvationarmy.org/uss/spiritual-life-development.
We would love to hear from you.

Lt. Colonel Allen Satterlee
Territorial Spiritual Life Development Officer/THQ Chaplain
USA Southern Territory