Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things,
Deut. 28:47
I wrote last week, willingness is as important to the Lord as obedience because it speaks to the motivation of our hearts.
If God, and He is, is at work in us both to will and do of His good pleasure, you can see why Paul continued his thought in Philippians chapter 2 for us to do all things without murmuring and complaining.
Joyful obedience is more than simple obedience. We can all be ‘made’ to obey by sheer force or manipulation, but when it comes to our Father, true obedience must be like Second Corinthians chapter nine, it must be freely and cheerfully given. Is it enough in the sight of God to simply do or must we as our verse says today do it with joyfulness and gladness of heart? The blessing lies in the cheerful obedience freely given.
I don’t think there can be joy until we believe what is set before us is good.
And we know that for those who love God all things works together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28.
Deuteronomy contains these admonitions ~
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good. “ Deut. 10:12-13
“And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, too fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. 25 And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.” Deut. 6:24
Always hidden with the instruction for obedience is the phrase “for our good’. Where there is no understanding, we cannot be like Jesus who for the joy set before him endured the cross.
From Psalm 40:7-8, we find the prophetic scripture referencing, Jesus which is rehearsed again in Hebrews chapter 10.
“In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you hav not required. Then I said, Behold I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God, you law is within my heart.”
The Hebrew word for obedience literally means ‘to hear’. Obedience begins with our hearing. Discipline is the school of obedience. Jesus had to learn obedience by the things he suffered and we must too. It is the willingness to endure hardness, spirit, soul and body, that teaches us. It is our willing and cheerful heart that yields a ‘prompt to do it’ action and it is in serving the Lord with joyfulness and gladness of heart that yields the blessings.