Love-Motivated, Spirit-empowered Obedience

Well, thank you for joining us again. I'm here again with my friend, Robin Cox, and I'm Stephen Canup, and in this session, we're going to be talking and getting into more detail, Robin, about what does that really mean, love-motivated, spirit-empowered obedience, because really, that's a major part of the title of the book, knowing Jesus intimately, a relationship of love-motivated, spirit-empowered obedience. And in our last session, we spent quite a while emphasizing the importance of intimacy, of relationship with Jesus, with God the Father, because of Jesus, through the power of the So in every chapter in here, I kind of tie it back to how it relates to intimacy of relationship or how to develop intimacy of relationship. So in this chapter, really what we want to talk about is kind of dive in a little bit more to that phrase. So we talked about a relationship, but the subtitle is a relationship of love-motivated, spirit-empowered obedience. Now, when you read that subtitle, or maybe when you read this chapter, what kind of stood out to you? Well, that's everything in the Christian walk right there. It summarizes it. It's so all-inclusive of having an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ based upon love and under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and obedience is just getting into agreement with God's Word. So where there's agreement, there's power, and where there's a lack of agreement, there's a lack of power. And let me tell you something, Satan and all of his demons want to dislodge us from being in agreement with the Word of God and knowing the Word of God and doing the Word of God and let the Holy Spirit lead us in doing the Word of God. And we have to stay, I mean, in today's world, as distracting as it is, we have to stay focused being willing to be obedient and we're tethered to the Word in the power of the Holy Spirit, tethered to the Word. I like that.

One thing I wrote in here, and this is becoming more true for me, I think, every day, every week, is our love for God increases in direct proportion to how much we comprehend and receive His great love for us. So our love for Him grows the more we believe and receive and experience His love for us, and we can only know about that and begin to experience that in an intimacy of relationship with Him. Yes, yes. And so the more we understand how much He loves us, it will motivate us to want to be obedient. And that's kind of how I summarize that. The John 14, 15, it says, if you love me, you will obey my commands. And I stopped and read that one day, and I think he gives us the secret to how to obey his commands. He said, if you love me, you will obey my commands. And I think what's implied in there is that if we love Him, the love that we have for God is actually empowered by our obedience and empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in us will want to respond to God's love for us through obedience. It says, don't just listen to the Word, but do the Word, right? And see, and so our heart's position, that is so powerful, Stephen. Our heart's position is to say, I'm going to come into agreement with every word you just said, yes, Lord, make it happen in my life and help me to be that type of Jesus-loving Christian. Yeah. And the way He helps us is by the Holy Spirit living in us and leading us. So that's the very next verse, when after Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commands, the very next verse says, and I will ask the Father and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. So He goes on and explains that, hey, the way you're going to obey my commands is if you'll listen to the Holy Spirit, basically. That's kind of what I got out of that.

And He never, Jesus never asked us to do anything that's impossible. So He's given us the helper. He's given us the power if we'll just be motivated to do our best to please him. Now, will we please him perfectly all the time? No. No. We're not perfect. No, but he was, right? You know, something you just said, do you mind me interjecting a thought? Something that- We're just having a conversation. The first, I said, when we did the thing that went through my mind, the first and foremost was obedience in doing what Jesus wanted us to do. And the second thing that I wish I would have known from the time I got saved back in 1971 is to embrace everything that the Holy Spirit is. He is God, the Holy Spirit. We have God, the Father, God, the Son. And once in a while I'll say, do you know what the Holy Spirit's first name is? Well, no, what's his first name? He's God, the Holy Spirit. And he loves us. And I wish I would have embraced the power of the Holy Spirit. Leadership.

From day one. From day one. Oh my goodness, I would be light years ahead of where I am right now. That has made so much difference to me in my walk is someone got me on that very track, is to seek, to understand that, and this is the way I look at it, is God, the Father, and God, the Son are seated in heavenly places. That's some other realm or dimension that we're not physically in. We're physically in this dimension. And Jesus said, when he got ready to leave, he said, I'm going there. But he said, the Father and I will send you a helper, the Holy Spirit. And so, and his disciples couldn't fathom it. He said, it's really better for you if I go away, because if I go away, I'm gonna send you a helper. And it's like, Jesus, I've been hanging in with you for three, three and a half years. How can it be better for me, for you to go away? But someone pointed out to me that Jesus was basically saying that you'll be better off with me in heaven and the Holy Spirit on earth rather than me on earth and the Holy Spirit still in heaven. That's right. And I never thought of it that way.

That's right. It just opened my mind to, oh my goodness, that's why he said he needed to go, but he would send us a helper. He knew that he could only be in one place at one time when he was in this physical body. But he knew also that, he said, the Father will send another, basically another just like me, a helper, an advocate, the Holy Spirit. Of course, and the Holy Spirit is everywhere. Everywhere, but is also, is everywhere and also in you. That's right. And something else there, Stephen, the power of the Holy Spirit manifesting in our life in the realm of obedience, the word of God, and intimacy, he's always there to lead us and guide us into all truth. All truth, that's right. And what I was taught in the early days was, I remember, I went to a little Southern Baptist church and I was taught, now, if you get around somebody that talks a lot about the Holy Spirit, you better stay away from those people because they're probably charismatics and they're gonna get you to do things that you shouldn't do and that the Bible didn't teach to do. So I was taught to stiff-arm the Holy Spirit. Oh yeah. And oh my goodness, he is God, the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, just anything and everything invade my life. I love you.

Thank you for the revelation and the wisdom and knowledge and understanding and discernment and discretion and instruction you bring my way. And I willingly, aggressively pursue you to give me everything you want to give me so that I can glorify you more in this life. That's exactly right. And here's the thing, too. I know that some people abuse, we'll say religion, with the Holy Spirit sometimes. But if anything ever weird happens, the way I look at it, if anything ever weird happened, that's probably me trying to do something on my own because the Holy Spirit's never gonna do anything that doesn't honor God and that doesn't line up to this word of God. So if somebody's out there doing something weird, they're probably abusing and they're probably trying to control things. I mean, we could get into a long discussion of that. We don't need to, really. Don't let them rob you of everything that the Holy Spirit has for you. And talking about spiritual abuse. In the early days, the people that said that were spiritually abusing me because for years, I stiff-armed the Holy Spirit. They kept you back from having more of God. Yes. And man, oh man, were they wrong.

And man, oh man, it's the Holy Spirit, right. And the other thing that we need to understand, it's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Like you said a minute ago, well, if God the Father and God the Son are seated in heavenly places, what I was about to say a minute ago is that they sent the Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit, on this earth. He is the very power of God on this earth. And he's totally creative, totally a genius. There's nothing he can do that would ever be wrong if we would just follow him. The Word says that he will always point us to Jesus and to the Word. And if you're ever listening to a spirit that is directing you away from the Word or in a way that would not honor Jesus, you're not listening to the Holy Spirit. You're listening to a wrong kind of spirit. Amen? And see, here's what the Holy Spirit does, Stephen. And you've nailed it in this book. Get this book on the Pando app or Adobo app and read it. But you nailed it, a relationship of love, motivated, spirit-empowered obedience. Amen. That says it all, Stephen. I want to read a quote in here that Dr. Charles Stanley said, So we're talking about the fear of God

can motivate us to receive God's love more and to respond to him in love. And Dr. Charles Stanley says, when we have a holy, respectful fear of our Lord, our desire changes from satisfying ourselves to serving our God. Pleasing him is not a chore. It becomes a joy done out of humility and thankfulness. I love that quote. That's a great quote. That's on page 26. So y'all need to look that up. It is the love, kindness, and goodness of God that continually motivates us to be obedient and to genuinely repent when we miss it. Because we are going to miss it sometimes. But we need to be quick to repent. We need to be quick to what? Admit it and quit it, right? Yes. Right? Good point. The Bible says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. So if we mess up, y'all get back up quickly. The Holy Spirit wants to encourage you, help you get up, and wants to encourage us to keep going the right way. And Stephen, it's important for everyone watching this,

you're going to mess up. Yeah. You're going to mess up. And it's not, I mean, we're human beings, and by saying that, we're not wanting you to feel like it's okay to live and mess up all the time. But we all mess up. So how do we get back where we're supposed to be? Forgive me, Lord. Yes. I repent. Yes. And I come back. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. I want to be the vessel of honor and glory for you that you've called me to be by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Was there a particular, so I always list a lot of verses in here that relate to this chapter in particular. Was there any particular verse that you noted that would demonstrate, did you mark anything? Yeah, I'm sure that was. Yeah. This is such a powerful verse. And really, this is just for you today. 2 Chronicles 16, 9. Oh, I love that.

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the whole earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. And I really like the way the King James Version says this. The eyes of the Lord roam to and fro throughout the whole earth, seeking to show himself strong in behalf of a person whose heart is perfect toward him. Fully committed to him. Fully committed to him. The Holy Spirit is searching for you and wants to anoint your life and wants to choose you as a vessel of honor. And he's been searching for somebody like that. And hopefully his eyes rest on you. Amen. Let me read this one passage here. It says, our Father's love is unconditional, unlimited, undeserved, and eternal. He accepts us just as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us that way. There's nothing we can do to make him love us. any more than he already does. Amen. So doing something to please him is not earning our salvation. Right. But as a result of our faith, as a result of our being saved, we will want to be obedient. Yes.

And the Holy Spirit will lead us to do good things, but there's nothing we can do to make God love us any more than he already does. And he just, and thankfully, there's nothing we can do to make him love us any less than he already does. Praise the Lord for that. Yes. So he just wants us to use our free will to choose to love him. Amen. The more we believe and receive his great love, the more we will joyfully obey him. And in each chapter, we have a little takeaway highlight, and I think I'll just read this to you. Each chapter, I just kind of take a little snippet. So good, Steve. And it says, God will always love you, and he will never leave you or forsake you. Knowing and fully receiving his love motivates us to want to please him. He is looking for those who have a heart that wants to be obedient, and I quote 2 Chronicles 16, 9, or I refer to that right there. And he's looking for those who have a heart that wants to be obedient and is quick to repent when we miss it. The Holy Spirit gives us the power that we need to obey.

Amen. So I want to remind you to look at that chapter, do the practical application at the end of that chapter. Now, in this next session, I want us to consider some other principles of obedience. Okay. Okay? Yay. So y'all stay tuned. Thanks. Thanks. ♪♪♪