Lesson One of the Book of Daniel, Introduction to the Book of Daniel

The Necessity of Prayer – Lesson XXV, Prayer and Obedience

Our Series on Prayer will include the following subjects: those in bold already done and those not in bold to be done.

Prayer and Faith

Prayer and Trust

Prayer and Desire

Prayer and Fervency

Prayer and Importunity]

Prayer and Character and Conduct

Prayer and Obedience

Prayer and Vigilance

Prayer and the Word of God

Prayer and the House of God

This series is purposed to add line upon line, precept upon precept, that you may be people of effectual fervent prayer.

Prayer and Obedience – Behind every command of God is His Omnipotence

We live in the age or dispensation of the Grace of God.

But what is the grace of God to do in our lives?

What is its function?

Does the grace of God only provide for our salvation or is the grace of God available to us for a broader purpose?

Is the grace of God given because God is simply good or does he have in mind to accomplish a discernible purpose?

Well, God is good to extend grace, but He does it to accomplish his purpose.

God’s desire as expressed in Deut 5:29, was that he have a people that would have a heart in them that would fear him.

“O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children after them.”

This was God’s heart in the dispensation of law but it is also God's heart in the dispensation of Grace.

The grace of God is for the purpose of bringing to God a people with such a heart.

A people that will keep God’s commandments that it might be well with them and with their children after them.

The grace of God is to provide power to be obedient to God’s word, to be obedient to God’s commandments that it might be well with us and with our children after us.

Obedience to God’s word is always for our good.

Obedience is never commanded by an arbitrary or fickle God.

God does not command obedience to put us down but obedience is commanded to put us up.

Obedience is faith with feet, and is the very test of our love for God.

The Lord Jesus Christ said:

John 15:10: If ye keep My commandments ye shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

Here we are given the relationship that is created and maintained by obedience.

The Son of God is held in the bosom or the closest part of His Father’s love, because of His obedience!

The Son is enabled to abide in His Father’s love, by his obedience:

John 8:29: “For I do, always, those things that please Him.”

This is to be the mark of all of God’s sons as Romans 8:29 reveals to us God’s conforming purpose:

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate (pre-determine) to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Predetermine means to plan and when God plans, his plans always turn out as he planned.

So the grace of God is given to us, as it was given to Jesus Christ, that we may always do those things which please the Father.

The gift of God’s Spirit flows from God’s grace.

Jesus Christ said in John 14:15-16: If ye love Me, keep My commandments, And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever.

The Holy Spirit is alongside us as we seek to do God’s will, as we seek to be obedient to God’s word.

The Holy Spirit is given to us to help us obey God that it might be well with us.

What then is obedience?

Obedience is doing God’s will: it is keeping His commandments.

We are to rightly divide the word of truth, to seek knowledge of God’s commands to us in this dispensation and to do them.

And how much of them are we to do?

By God’s grace we are to do all of them for to break one is to break all.

That is the standard.

And God provides grace to us to obey his commandments through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Always, for our benefit, does God command obedience to his Word.

Nothing else will satisfy him and nothing else will please him for obedience is done in faith.

And would God give commandments which a man cannot obey?

The grace of God is given to those who are born of God that they will overcome the world.

John 5:3-5, For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

Jesus declared that those who come to him will, upon learning of him, have an easy yoke, and a light burden.

As Matthew recorded in Matthew 11:28-30, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Obeying the commandments of God is not grievous, but not obeying the commandments of God is grievous.

Obeying the commandments of God brings an easy yoke and a light burden.

Not obeying the commandments of God brings a heavy yoke and a heavy burden.

It is not that God places these yokes and burdens but it is the sin of disobedience itself that brings the heaviness of burden.

God has so ordained that the sin itself brings the burden.

But for our good, is obedience demanded.

Does God give commandments which a man cannot obey?

Is God arbitrary, is God so severe, so unloving, as to give commandments which cannot be obeyed?

God does not!

Does an earthly father or mother require duties of their children which they cannot accomplish?

Perhaps a child is not yet strong enough to lift the load that is directed to be lifted.

Upon the plea of the child doesn’t the father or mother rush to provide help or grace to the child to lift the load?

And isn’t God more kind and more just than faulty earthly parents?

Obedience is the giving up of one’s own way and following the way of another.

Obedience is the surrendering of the will to the will of another.

Obedience is submission of oneself to the authority and requirements of another.

We should expect that commands from our earthly father are directed by love and in our best interest.

This may not always be true because of the sin nature of earthly fathers.

But it is always true in the case of our heavenly father