To whom Are We Obligated?

To whom or to what are you obligated? If we are married, we are obligated to the family we raise, to feed, nurture, and grow the future. We are obligated to pay taxes, and debts incurred. We are obligated to obey the laws set up in our nation to preserve safety, order, and discipline within the people. What we are not obligated to do, as believers, is to cease prayer in certain places, for nobody has the ability to dictate when we pray. We are not obligated to leadership that tells us how to raise our children. We are not obligated to live according to the flesh, even when the flesh seems to have such a great pull on us, even when the desire makes a significant impact on our mind. The Apostle Paul writes: “So then, brothers, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. All those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs – heirs of God and Coheirs with Christ -seeing that we suffer with HIm so that we may also be glorified with Him.” Romans 8: 12-17 One of the lady’s of the church shared with me last night what this sounded like in the Message. I looked and listened to how the Message describes verses 15 “This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” Romans 8:13 Msg. We are not obligated to live like the world lives. As believers, we share something greater than this world, and we can indeed live according to the Spirit instead of the flesh. We have Christ, and that life surely outweighs the life that the world and the flesh that is trying to persuade us that we need to switch to. But are we expectant? Are we excited? Being a believer can and is an adventure far beyond our expectations, But we must give up something! We must give up the desire in the flesh to live according to the flesh. Therein lies the battle that wages inside us. The desire by the Spirit who lives in us, is against the will of the flesh, that wants to go against everything Christ died for. Sometime in this journey we will be presented with the declaration that we can no longer walk both sides. We can no longer live according to the world, and falsely think we are living a faithful life. We can no longer succumb to the flesh, and still think that we are doing the Lord’s will. They are totally against each other. But as Paul points out. “We are NOT obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die.” Now don’t get me wrong, this death he is talking about is not the death of the flesh that we all will encounter, but the separation from the Lord God, who made the supreme sacrifice to save us from that kind of death. We will be forever with Him in eternity – alive. So what are you obligated to? For me! I will echo the words of Joshua who proclaimed: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” And therein lies the adventure and the Journey of which I am so expectant and excited to walk. Pastor Andy