Read Ezekiel 36:26–28. How does obedience take place in our lives?
On three occasions, the Israelites fervently declared that they would obey God (Exod. 19:8; Exod. 24:3, 7). Obedience is important, even if the Bible teaches that we humans are weak, broken, fragile, and sinful. This sad truth has been revealed not only through the history of ancient Israel but through the history of all His people.
How, then, are we enabled to follow God faithfully?
The good news is that what God commands, He empowers us to do. The help that is not inside of us comes from outside, enabling us to do what God requires. It is His work. In the core of his theological summary in Ezekiel 36:26, 27, the prophet Ezekiel makes this point very clear. Only God can perform a heart transplant, and He does so by removing our heart of stone and replacing it with a sensitive heart of flesh. As Joshua reminded his audience: “ ‘You are not able to serve the Lord’ ” (Josh. 24:19, NIV).
We can decide to follow God; that is our role. We have to make the choice, the moment-by-moment choice to surrender to Him. And that is because we do not have the power to fulfill even our conscious choice to serve Him. But when we give our weakness to God, He will make us strong. Paul says: “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10, NKJV).
Notice the divine “I” in Ezekiel 36:24–30: God gathers, cleanses, removes, gives, puts, and moves you to carefully keep His law. What He is doing, you will do. He identifies with you, and if you associate closely with Him, His doing will be your doing. The unity between God and you will be dynamic, powerful, and lively.
Again, the emphasis in this passage is on God’s doing. The literal translation reads: “I will give my Spirit in you, and I will do that you will walk in my statutes and keep my laws, and you will do.” God commands people to obey and then gives the power to obey. What God requires of His people, He always helps them to do. Obedience is God’s gift (not just our performance or achievement), just as justification and salvation are His gifts too (Phil. 2:13).
If we have been promised the power to obey, why do we find it so easy to fall into sin anyway?
Supplemental EGW Notes
The only safeguard against evil is the indwelling of Christ in the heart through faith in His righteousness. It is because selfishness exists in our hearts that temptation has power over us. But when we behold the great love of God, selfishness appears to us in its hideous and repulsive character, and we desire to have it expelled from the soul. As the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ, our hearts are softened and subdued, the temptation loses its power, and the grace of Christ transforms the character.
Christ will never abandon the soul for whom He has died. The soul may leave Him and be overwhelmed with temptation, but Christ can never turn from one for whom He has paid the ransom of His own life. Could our spiritual vision be quickened, we should see souls bowed under oppression and burdened with grief, pressed as a cart beneath sheaves and ready to die in discouragement. We should see angels flying swiftly to aid these tempted ones, who are standing as on the brink of a precipice. The angels from heaven force back the hosts of evil that encompass these souls, and guide them to plant their feet on the sure foundation. The battles waging between the two armies are as real as those fought by the armies of this world, and on the issue of the spiritual conflict eternal destinies depend.
To us, as to Peter, the word is spoken, “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” Luke 22:31, 32. Thank God, we are not left alone. He who “so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16), will not desert us in the battle with the adversary of God and man. “Behold,” He says, “I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” Luke 10:19.
Live in contact with the living Christ, and He will hold you firmly by a hand that will never let go. Know and believe the love that God has to us, and you are secure; that love is a fortress impregnable to all the delusions and assaults of Satan. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.” Proverbs 18:10.—Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, pp. 118, 119.
The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.