Why should we obey God? A Bible school student in our church had to write a paper to answer this question. She concluded that we should obey because God is your creator and because He is our loving Father. I told her I had some additional ideas and she wanted to hear them once she had completed her paper. So here they are.
- Growth in holiness (Rom. 6:19-22; I Peter 1:22; I Thes. 4:7)
- Maintain my freedom in Christ (Rom. 6:15-18)
- Gratitude (Col. 2:6-7; 3:15-17; Heb. 12:28-29)
- Character Formation (II Peter 1:3-11)
- Witness in the world (I Peter 2:11-12)
- Power (Eph. 3:14-19)
- Duty (Luke 17:7-10)
- Reward (II Cor. 5:9-10)
They all fall under Matthew Henry's category of "twisted interests." We obey God because He gets the glory and we grow in our satisfaction and happiness with God. The Christian life is not platonic. The highest virtue is not selfless love. It is a passionate love for God which recognizes in Him the greatest of all joys.
On this subject, we have to be careful not to be more 'spiritual' than scripture is. If scripture lists duty or reward as a motive, then we ought not to set it aside because it doesn't fit our template. God knows our frames. His enticement to reward is also a sign of his grace.
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