Reason #15 Obedience Born of Love

A wrong or weak understanding of God's love for us and His will for our lives can lead to a view that sees obedience to Him as a drudgery. On the other hand, we know that when we truly love someone it is never "drudgery" to do what pleases them, to honor them. If we truly love God it will be our joy to honor Him with our obedience.  

"To love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength is the greatest commandment in the law (Mark 12:28-30). If I could simply fulfill this one commandment, I would gladly fulfill all the others as a natural matter of course.

 So how can I come to love God with all of my being (1 John 5:3)? The Bible teaches that genuine love in my heart for God is generated by an awareness of His love for me (1 John 4:19), and nowhere is the love of God more clearly revealed than in the gospel (Romans 5:7-8, John 15:13, Ephesians 2:4-5).

Therefore, preaching the gospel to myself is a great way to keep God's amazing love before my eyes, so that I might experience its power to produce in me a passionate love for Him in return. Captured by His love in this way, my smitten heart increasingly burns to do His will and feasts itself on doing so (John 14:31, John 4:34, Psalm 40:8)."  -Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians, p.28

Reason #14: Cultivating Humility

At the root of our on-going struggle with sin lies the pride of our flesh. The humility God desires His children to exhibit and that every Christian should desire to know as a reality in his or her life, is something we must fight for until that day we are in the presence of  our Lord and are made like Him, perfect in holiness. The most powerful weapon, one that lays waste to sinful pride is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

"According to Scripture, God deliberately designed the gospel in such a way so as to strip me of pride and leave me without any grounds for boasting in myself whatsoever (Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Corinthians 1:27-29). This is actually a wonderful mercy from God, for pride is at the root of all my sin. Pride produced the first sin in the garden (Genesis 3:4-6), and pride always proceeds every sinful stumbling in my life (Proverbs 16:18). Therefore, if I am to experience deliverance from sin, then I must be delivered from the pride that produces it. Thankfully, the gospel is engineered to accomplish this deliverance.

Preaching the gospel to myself each day mounts a powerful assault against my pride and serves to establish humility in its place. Nothing suffocates my pride more than daily reminders regarding the glory of my God, the gravity of my sins, and the crucifixion of God's own Son in my place. Also, the gracious love of God, lavished on me because of Christ's death, is always humbling to remember, especially when viewed against the backdrop of the Hell I deserve.

Pride wilts in the atmosphere of the gospel; and the more pride is mortified within me, the less frequent are my moments of sinful contention with God and with others (Proverbs 13:10). Conversely, humility grows lushly in the atmosphere of the gospel, and the more humility flourishes within me, the more I experience God's grace (James 4:6) along with the strengthening His grace provides (Hebrews 13:9). Additionally, such humility intensifies my passion for God and causes my heart increasingly to thrill whenever He is praised (Psalm 34:2)."  -Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians, p.27