“If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” (John 14:15 ESV)

Obedience.

This word has a bitter taste in most mouths. Even for Christians. To obey renders a type of weakness and submission. To be weak and submissive is counter-cultural, unpopular, and is far from the world’s exaggerated importance of being in a constant state of having fun and being happy. Obedience, submission, and any form of internal weaknesses have been twisted into something that is overwhelmingly despised and labeled as old and outdated. This warping, twisting, and manipulating of these beautiful biblical concepts is deception from the Father of Lies. As believers of Jesus Christ as Messiah, we should armor up and stand firm in taking back the purity and beauty of godly obedience.

I immediately think of my children, specifically my teenagers. It’s almost a right-of-passage for teens to despise or question the purpose and goodness of obedience. Through parenting I have come to understand at a deeper level the beauty of God’s boundaries laid out to us in His scriptures. It’s His commitment to His glory and His boundless love for us that He commands obedience from His children.

For many years I’ve repeated, prayed, and cried out, “I Trust my God.” Lately, I’m crying out, “Help me to obey You, Lord.” The commands to trust and obey are significantly intertwined. I can hear my young daughter sing the beautiful lyrics of a great hymn, “Trust and obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey…”

We obey because we trust. We trust because we have faith in Christ as our Savior. We have faith in Christ as our Savior because God granted faith and repentance to us as a gift. God granted us this gift of faith and repentance because He wanted to and it displays His mercy and grace.

My heart’s desire is to obey my Lord in all things. The wanderings in the deep recesses of my heart, the callous complaints and thoughts that wade through my mind, the dishonor that sometimes leaves my lips, the grand desire to avoid surrendering comforts, the attitude of my heart, the focus of my goals, the motives of my work, the purity of my prayers and praise unto the Lord—in all of it, I want to obey my God.

Help me to obey You, Lord! As my heart is crying out this new mantra of deeply desiring radical and radiant obedience unto the Lord, I am reminded of what Jesus said to His disciples recorded in the Gospel of John,

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” (John 14:15 ESV).

I love what my ESV Bible Commentary says about this verse, “True love manifests itself in willing obedience.”

Willing obedience.

Willing obedience magnifies a type of joy within obedience. Willing obedience showcases the heart of the Believer.

Jesus is not asking something of us that He didn’t display the ultimate example of. His willing obedience to consume all of God’s wrath for His children’s sin debts. He obeyed unto His physical death adorned with humiliation and innocence. He was murdered, though only momentarily, by His own creation.

Jesus’ boundless love for the Father was the center of the mission on the cross. At the core of Jesus’ radical and radiant obedience we must remember that He was the Godman. He was fully God, yet fully man. So being fully man we can only imagine His temptation to want to avoid the cross and what He would bear. We see a glimpse of this in His final prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

“Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And talking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will,” (Matthew 26:36-39 ESV).

True love manifests itself in willing obedience. 

Christ’s love for God the Father is evident in this passage through His Words, “…not as I will, but as you will,” (Matthrew 26:39 ESV).

Are we surrendering our battle of the wills to that of The Lord’s?

Do we reflect this same love toward our God? Or have we mastered the lip service of praying God’s will, and appearing obedient as a Pharisee, yet in the depths of who we are we brim with disgust at the taste of true and radical obedience in all areas of our lives and hidden space that make up our heart, mind, and soul?

It’s worth our attention and reflection.

One of my favorite things about Jesus’ statement to the disciples in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” is He doesn’t stop there. Jesus goes on to share some incredible news with the disciples. He says,

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you,” (John 14:16-17 ESV).

This passage sets the tone that our love for Christ alone won’t fortify obedience to keep His commands. So, He’s gifted us with the third part of the Trinity—The Holy Spirit. Our forever Helper, living in us, and guiding us into all truth. With the Holy Spirit guiding us, we should hunger to seek God more, know God more, love God more, trust God more, and obey God more.

With the Holy Spirit we’re equipped to radically obey in all circumstances and reflect the Spirit’s fruit of, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. As our lives bear the Fruit of the Spirit we endure well. Our surrender of our will to that of the Father’s, our submission to His authority, and our obedience to Him in all things, begins to flourish.

You may be in a season of hardship or facing many unknowns, but because of Christ’s atoning work at the Cross, we can pray, wait, trust and obey with a joy that is granted to us through Christ’s righteousness. We do not have to succumb to sinful actions and reactions to life’s woes. We’re set apart. With the Holy Spirit’s leadership in our lives, we are commanded to live honorably and faithfully, enduring well and persevering in godly obedience until we’re in glory and fully glorified in the Father.

It’s all connected, and it’s beautiful.

As I’m writing this, I know the word obedience itself can be connected to many unsavory and unbiblical religiosities for many. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit renews your mind in perceiving obedience as a gift to enjoy from our Lord and with our Lord. Obedience is biblical, beautiful, and paves a road of much joy and peace in the heart of a Believer.

Sister, I pray you are stoked with a great desire to live a life of radical and radiant obedience unto the Lord. I pray you do not grow weary of doing good unto the Lord. I pray you center your life on abiding in the Lord. I pray your desire to honor the Lord in all areas of your life is ever-present as we begin to live in the gift of a New Year.

I want to end with more of Jesus’ words to His disciples,

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full,” (John 15:7-11 ESV).

May you have an obedient 2026.

I Trust my God, I Trust my God, I Trust my God

Ardently His,

Jess Dennis