\u201cProne to wander – Lord I feel it! \u2013 prone to leave the God I love.\u201d<\/a> Thus God put reminders of His commands into the everyday life of the people of Israel. For example: After the people rebel at the edge of the Promised Land, refusing to enter in for fear of giants (Numbers 14), God tells them to wear tassels on each corner of their garments so that they will remember His commandments \u201cto do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after\u201d (Numbers 15:39). And why is obedience important? Because He is their God; He brought them out of Egypt to be their God; they are to be holy, set apart for their God (Numbers 15:40-41).<\/p>\nJust so with us today. God brings us out of rebellion, out of slavery to sin, out of our own Egypts. He rescues us \u2013 not so that we, freed from slavery to sin, can be free to follow after our own heart and our own eyes. No. To follow after our own heart is to be enslaved once again to sin. Our desperately sick and deceitful heart makes us believe we are freely pursuing our own good, but that way that seems right to us leads only to death and destruction (Proverbs 14:12).<\/p>\n
God plans something much better for those whom He rescues from slavery. He brings us to Himself. <\/i>He adopts us into His family<\/i>. He calls us to be set apart for Him<\/i>. And He tells us what that means in this world by giving us commandments for our good<\/i> (Deuteronomy 10:13).<\/p>\n
So obedience is characteristic of those in God\u2019s family. Loved by Him, chosen by Him, empowered by Him to obey, we respond with loving, joyful obedience to His commands that are for our good.<\/p>\n
Yet what happens when we fail? What happens when we disobey? What happens when that desperately sick, deceitful heart leads us again in a wrong direction? If we don\u2019t obey God\u2019s commands, are we kicked out of the family?<\/p>\n
Jesus Himself provides the solution. As in good human families, God the Father never leaves or forsakes the children who are His. As the Apostle John writes, \u201cMy little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin\u201d (1 John 2:1). That is, we\u2019re part of the family. We are to be obedient to our loving Father. To sin is to deny Who He is and what He has done for us. \u201cBut if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.\u00a0 He is the propitiation for our sins\u201d (1 John 2:1-2). In His family, the penalty for sin is paid. Jesus took the just punishment on Himself for the sins of those in the family. Yet this is not an excuse to sin: \u201cAnd by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments\u201d <\/b>(1 John 2:3).<\/p>\n
So Jesus invites us \u2013 He invites you! \u2013 to be part of the joyful, obedient family of God. To do this, we must recognize our sinful, deceitful hearts, and acknowledge that apart from God\u2019s loving guidance we will go astray, we will rebel, we will wander, to our own harm. \u00a0But in the family of God, we are loved; we are cherished; we are forgiven by the blood of Christ. So, set apart for Him, we live lives worthy of our calling, knowing that through us(!) \u201call the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD\u201d (Numbers 14:21).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Mark 3, Jesus has become the center of public attention. Thousands are coming to Him, following Him wherever He goes, even to the point that He could find no…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15,17],"tags":[516,707,804,856,976,1088,1091,1220,1671,1690,1701],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-devotions","category-family","tag-family-of-god","tag-heart-is-deceitful","tag-intimate-family","tag-joy","tag-mark-3","tag-numbers-15","tag-obedience","tag-prone-to-wander","tag-way-that-seems-right","tag-who-are-my-mother-and-brothers","tag-will-of-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}