Introduction: Misunderstandings Steal Our Joy
We don’t usually associate “law” with liberty. In fact, for many Christians, God’s law feels like the opposite of freedom, more like a weight to carry than something to enjoy. Many Christians have a rich focus on grace, and rightly so. But too often, our focus on grace leads us to keep God’s law at arm’s length, either neglecting to pay any attention to it or pretending as though obedience were some necessary evil we endure to keep God off our backs. We know we’re not saved by works, so we sometimes assume that works don’t matter much at all. As a result, we begin to see grace and law as opposing forces, as if one excludes the other. Obedience starts to feel either burdensome and legalistic, or optional.
But what if there is a beauty and harmony to these ideas that we aren’t seeing clearly?
For many believers, obedience often feels toilsome and difficult. Doing the things God calls us to can often feel constricting and limiting, far from anything we would describe as freedom. Since we know we’re saved by grace, not by works, what exactly are we trying to accomplish through all this striving? If all our sins are already forgiven, and our works add nothing to our salvation, then what is there really to gain? If obedience doesn’t earn us anything with God, what’s the point?
These are questions many Christians feel but rarely ask aloud.
At the root of those questions is a serious misunderstanding, both about God’s law and about the nature of true freedom. And this misunderstanding quietly robs us of joy and distorts the beauty of the Christian life. Obedience is often seen as something cold, obligatory, and legalistic. We’ve all heard (or said) things like, “Christianity isn’t about rules, it’s about a relationship.” While that’s true in part, it can leave the impression that rules and relationships are inherently opposed, as if God’s commands somehow interfere with intimacy rather than deepen it.
But the law of God is not just an arbitrary set of rules—it’s a revelation of His character. And it only exists for our good. It shows the design of how life actually functions best. It’s where our deepest joy was always meant to be found, because it’s what we were made for. When we begin to see that, obedience to the law stops feeling like legalism and starts to feel like love. And the more clearly we can see the law as a living expression of God’s love and good intentions, the more it begins to shine as true freedom. Obedience to God’s law is not the roadblock to joy, but it is the very road itself.
Now, before we go further, it’s important to clarify what I mean by “the law.” I don’t simply mean the regulations given at Sinai, or the moral code of the Ten Commandments in isolation, or even the two commandments given by Jesus in the New Testament. Those have all been valuable expressions of God’s law, but what I’m really referring to is that which those are merely expressions of. I am talking about the moral fabric of reality that flows out of God’s very nature. The “law” that existed before any expression of it. This law was never created; it was revealed. And it precedes and transcends every command and covenant. It contains the shape of God’s character, which is the foundation and blueprint for all spiritual life.
The written commands of Scripture help us see that law in tangible terms. They give it a form we can understand. So, it’s good and right to think of the law in terms of God’s revealed instructions. But it’s also important to develop an understanding that the law is not merely a list of do’s and don’ts. It is a window into the mind and heart of God.
So yes, when I’m referring to “law” in this article, I do mean the collection of commands and instructions provided in scripture, but I also mean, in a deeper sense, the moral reality of God’s nature that is being communicated by His commands and instructions.
Now, to be clear, not every rule or instruction found in scripture applies to believers in the same way today, though it all contains valuable insight. The Old Testament law contains ceremonial laws (which pointed forward to Christ and were fulfilled in Him), civil laws (which governed national Israel under the Old Covenant), and moral laws (which reflect God’s unchanging character and are universally binding). Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial and sacrificial system perfectly (Hebrews 10:1–14), and we are no longer bound by Israel’s civil code as a geopolitical nation. But the moral law—the expression of God’s eternal character—remains deeply relevant. These are the kinds of instructions and commands I’m referring to throughout this article: not the shadows that have passed away, but the enduring light of God’s nature revealed for our joy and flourishing.
With all that being said, my working definition of obedience is this:
Obedience is to think, feel, and act in accordance with all that God has revealed of His nature and character.
God’s moral law is an indispensable part of that self-revelation, alongside other forms—most clearly the person and work of Jesus Christ. Each form of revelation illuminates the others, together giving us the fullest possible picture of who God is.
Obedience, then, is not merely rule-keeping; it is a whole-life response to the full self-revelation of God in every form it takes—a response that necessarily includes conformity to His moral law. And this obedience is always the obedience of faith. For we are aligning our lives to a reality that cannot be seen with physical eyes, but only with the eyes of the heart (Eph. 1:18). Thus, faith is the root and cause of all true obedience (Heb. 11:6; Rom. 14:23). And though our obedience will always be imperfect this side of heaven, it will unmistakably mark the life of every true believer.
But what about grace, you might ask? Isn’t it true that Christians are no longer under the law but under grace? Yes, and no. As believers, we are not under the law’s condemnation or as a means of justification. But that doesn’t mean we’ve been set free from the law in every sense. We’ve been set free for the law—free to walk in it joyfully, not fearfully. The law is no longer a harsh judge but a helpful guide. The law for believers becomes something we are empowered to walk in. Far from being something to fear, the law now serves as a guide for our flourishing. As Paul writes in Romans 7:22, ‘I delight in the law of God, in my inner being.’”
Obedience to all that God has commanded and instructed us does not often come naturally and involves self-denial, but when we see the law for what it truly is, the path of obedience will dazzle with beauty that we can’t resist.
Obedience isn’t the hard road to heaven; it’s the joyful path of walking in harmony with the One who made us for that very purpose. It’s the only way to true and lasting joy. It’s not meant to stifle our joy but to invigorate it. Obedience to God is not only good for us; it’s the only good for us.
The Law Is Not Arbitrary—It’s Loving
God’s law flows directly from who He is. It’s not just some list of rules He made up to keep us in line. The law is the practical outworking of His nature. And God’s nature is a thing of pure beauty. It reveals the intricacies of His glory. So, in order to see the beauty of obedience, it’s essential to understand how the nature of God directly correlates with the law of God.
God’s nature is both breathtakingly complex and profoundly simple. His nature is simple in that He is not made up of parts. All the attributes He has are like facets of the same diamond. They are not truly distinct realities. They are simply His glory shining from different angles. He exists with every attribute He has in fullness and perfection but also fully and perfectly working together. He is not merely all-wise, all-loving, and all-just, etc. But He is perfectly wise in His perfect justice. He is perfectly merciful in His righteousness and holiness, and perfectly holy in His mercy. Every part of Him works in perfect harmony with every other part, so that there really are not distinct parts but one divine whole.
The whole of who God is can be imagined as a glorious symphony—full, majestic, and perfectly harmonious. Altogether it only makes one sound, but in our current, limited state, we’re not able to take in the entire composition at once. The fullness of His nature is too vast for our finite minds to grasp all at once. So, it must be broken down into individual movements and instruments, so to speak. We learn the sound of the trumpet apart from the violin, and the rhythm of the percussion apart from the strings. In the same way, we study God’s holiness, justice, mercy, and love as if they were distinct, even though in Him, they are always perfectly united. Each attribute is a glimpse into the whole, a single instrument playing in perfect concert with the others. And as we come to know each part more clearly, we begin to hear more of the music. We get closer to perceiving the breathtaking harmony and glory of the whole.
Just as we come to understand God’s character by studying its individual attributes, we also come to understand His law by seeing how it reflects those attributes in specific, actionable ways. The commands God gives us are not random or detached. They correspond directly to who He is. Because God is the fullness of truth, He commands us not to bear false witness. Because He is infinitely lovely, He calls us to love Him with all our hearts and to love others who bear His image. Because He is the sovereign Creator and rightful owner of all things, He commands us not to steal, not to covet, and not to take for ourselves what He has not graciously given. Every command flows out of some facet of His nature. Obedience, then, is not a list of arbitrary tasks; it is a way of aligning ourselves with the deepest realities of who God is.
This is why the law is not a cold legal code but a living reflection of a personal God. Each command is relational, and revelatory. Through them, we come to know the heart of God and the shape of the universe He made.
Every rule He gives us is an invitation to know Him better, to closer align our lives with the nature of the Giver of life. And when the rule-giver is perfect love and wisdom, every rule becomes an act of grace. Every command is like a window into His character.
And the more we obey, the more we tune our hearts to the music that’s at the heart of the universe.
The Law is Reality
God’s commands are not tacked on to the universe like a moral accessory. They are not arbitrary rules imposed after the fact. They are embedded into the very fabric of creation. The law of God was not invented at Sinai; it was revealed. It has been present from the beginning, woven deeply through every fiber of the world He made.
Just as the laws of nature govern the physical world, God’s moral law governs the world of the soul, the spiritual world. You cannot have a functioning universe without the laws of gravity, motion, thermodynamics, etc. These laws are not optional; they are inseparable from the creation they govern. Without them, there would be no structure, coherence, or life. Only chaos.
Spiritual reality operates the same way. The law of God governs spiritual order the way that the laws of nature govern physical order. The law of God is what holds spiritual life together. It is what brings order out of moral chaos. Just as physical life cannot exist apart from physical law, spiritual life cannot flourish apart from God’s moral law.
But here is where humanity stands apart: the rest of creation cannot rebel. The stars don’t defy gravity. Planets don’t wake up one day and decide to break their orbit. But we have the ability spiritually to deny the law of God and live contrary to it. God has given His image bearers a will and a creativity that He has not given to the rest of His creation. We can choose to deny His order in favor of chaos—and so we have.
And this disobedience to the law of God only brings destruction and decay. We may think or feel as though we can “get-away” with disobedience, as though through our rebellious ingenuity, we can pave our own path of joy, but we could not be more wrong. Disobedience can feel very rewarding… but only for a time. Galatians 6:7 assures us of this: “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that he will also reap.”
Any perceived benefit from disobedience is an illusion. There is no end-run around God’s law. No shortcuts. There is no secret path to flourishing apart from Him. If it feels like sin is “working” for us—like we’re getting away with something—it is only because we are seeing dimly. Our lack of eternal perspective makes fools out of us. Disobedience never goes unnoticed; it only steals joy in silence. One day, all accounts will be settled, and what once felt harmless will be revealed for the foolishness and self-destruction it always was.
True Freedom Requires Structure
We often think of freedom as the removal of all boundaries. But real freedom isn’t the absence of structure; it’s the presence of purpose.
At the root of disobedience and our rebellion is a lie we have fallen prey to: that structure stifles freedom. That order is the enemy of joy. But the opposite is true. Freedom without order is not freedom at all; it is collapse. We need structure to have life. Without the structure of walls, roofs, and doors, we would all be homeless. Without the structure of rhythm, keys, scales, and time, there is no music—only noise. Without the law of God, there is no human flourishing—only confusion masquerading as freedom.
True freedom is found within the law, not outside it. Law is not the enemy of freedom. It enables it.
To obey God is to align yourself with how life actually works. It is how humanity flourishes. It is the only true path to joy.
This is why Psalm 19 overflows with delight in the law of God in verses 7–11 when it says:
“The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.”
Real freedom is not found in casting off God’s commands but in embracing them. God is not trying to make life difficult for us. He is showing us the path of life. He is trying to show us Himself. To live in obedience is to live in agreement with the truth of who God is. It is the truth of reality and how it is designed to operate. And to resist it is to live against the grain of reality, something that always leaves us splintered.
The law is a kind of restraint, but not the kind we often imagine. Some restraints bind and restrict, like a straitjacket. Others, however, enable and protect, like the harness you wear when paragliding or ziplining. The harness holds you in, not to stifle your freedom, but to make the experience possible in the first place. The restraint exists for your joy. The law of God is that kind of restraint. It is not there to limit joy, but to unleash it.
Psalm 119:45:
“I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.”
Obedience and the Desire for Reward
At some level, in essentially everything we do, we ask: What’s in it for me? We may not always be conscious of it, but this internal question quietly shapes our decisions, even our most outwardly selfless ones. Often, our motivations are surface level and obvious. But even beneath the surface, we still are motivated by other things we perceive as beneficial: whether approval, meaning, or fulfillment. Even when you act in the best interests of others, it’s still at least partly because it brings you some kind of satisfaction. You may give up physical comfort, your time, or monetary resources to help others, but it rewards you with something else, like a sense of meaning or fulfillment. This may be seen as a more noble motivation, but it’s still a form of self-reward, nonetheless.
Simply put, no one acts unselfishly and simultaneously feels terrible about doing so. There’s always some internal payoff, however small. And if we’re being honest, we know this. We are constantly seeking our own good, in ways that are sometimes more noble and sometimes less. Which means the desire for self-reward isn’t something we can ever escape. It’s hardwired into how we operate as humans.
Since we can reason that this desire is inescapable, we must sort it out rather than deny it. The real issue isn’t whether we act for our good. We always do that. The real issue is how we define what is “good.”
This is where a crucial point of clarification comes in, one I believe is thoroughly biblical but that I will not take the time to fully defend for the purposes of this article. Which is: as creatures made to know and love God, we were designed for one supreme joy: Him. All our motivations derive their moral value from their relation to that joy and whether they align with or oppose it. God is the greatest good—the fountain of all beauty, love, and life. And our motives are only truly good when they are drawing their supply from that fountain.
So, while the question of what’s in it for me? is so often selfish in a sinful way, it isn’t inherently wrong. It all depends on what exactly is motivating us: what the source of our joy is. If the ultimate source of our joy in a given act is ourselves, then it is sinful. If it’s something outside ourselves but still not God, it’s also sinful. But if an act is done truly out of our joy in God, then it is truly obedience.
To bring this down to street level, imagine you see an old lady struggling to push her walker across the street. If you see this and decide not to help, it is because your source of joy is yourself. This is sinful. If you do decide to help her, but it’s because you saw someone help her across the street last week and receive a $20 bill for their effort, then the source of your joy is money, which is still about you since money is for the purpose of self-accumulation and consumption. This is sinful. If you do help her, but it’s so you can pat yourself on the back and feel better about your own morality, then your joy is your own moral record. Outwardly appears well but inwardly is still sinful. Lastly, if you see the old lady struggling, and help her, because she is an image bearer of God and the reality of God’s self-sacrificial love causes you to want to extend that love to other people, then your source of joy is truly outside of yourself and placed where it should be. This is true obedience to the law of God. It is “considering others more important than yourself” and believing that it is truly “better to give than to receive”. You want to engage in a particular act, because it mirrors the character of God, and God is your greatest joy. The simple fact that it reflects God gives you joy.
In this example, you can see that the desire for self-reward can take many forms but is itself unavoidable. This desire is there by design, but it must be rightly directed. The longing for reward isn’t something to be ashamed of or eliminated. It’s something to be redeemed. Our desires for reward are meant to be met by God. In God.
“Whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6)
God is not indifferent to our desires for joy. He appeals to them. And in this way, it is our duty to inflame these desires, not restrict them. Our huge problem is that we so often do not rightly think of the Christian life as an inherent appeal to desire, as we ought. So, we can wrongly attempt to stifle desire for reward in general, thinking that is somehow pleasing to God.
C.S. Lewis put it this way in The Weight of Glory:
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak… We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us… We are far too easily pleased.”
Christianity does not kill desire. It purifies it and redirects it, keeping us from fulfilling our desires in all the wrong places. The message of the Gospel hinges on the huge weight of reward that it promises. And that reward is the joy of a relationship with God. The problem is not that we want too much, but that we settle for too little. We chase after fleeting pleasures while the fullness of God’s joy stands waiting. To not chase after joy in God is to completely misunderstand what Christianity is about.
This is why obedience is not merely duty; it’s delight. And, it becomes our duty then to delight in God. Obedience should not be a type of drudgery on the way to reward.
The massive problem with the way so many Christians approach obedience and the law is that we entirely misunderstand the proper reward for obedience. We imagine that we are obeying God to get something from God. If we do what He says, then we’ll be blessed with better health, relationships, or careers. If we do what He says, He will maybe love us more or be happier with us. Our conscience might bother us less. And, perhaps worst of all, we may be attempting to obey God more, because we think it will secure us a spot in heaven.
All of these motivations are completely wrong and foolish. They all make the Gospel and the Christian life out to be something else entirely. But the right motivation to obey God is not to get anything else from it but God Himself. We don’t obey to get anything from God. We obey to get God. To get more of Him. To know Him better. To be more like Him. To rejoice in Him.
Obedience is its own reward. As C.S. Lewis said in The Problem of Pain:
“The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation… marriage is the proper reward for a real lover; and he is not mercenary for desiring it.”
Just like we don’t rightly love our spouses for their money or connections, we don’t follow God to get something other than Him. The reward of obedience is not something disconnected from it. Obedience is a way to deepen our experience of the God we love. Obedience is about relationship. Jesus says in John 14:21, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me… and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Obedience is not just a means to another end—it is the end. Because the reward for obedience isn’t something else entirely. God Himself is the reward. Not a prize we earn, but a person we encounter. When we obey, we draw closer to Him. When we say no to lesser desires, it’s only so we can say yes to better ones. When obedience feels like self-denial, it’s never self-denial for its own sake.
Obedience is not about forgoing joy. It’s about finally finding it. In God.
Obedience Shapes us and Shows us God
Obedience can often seem hard and unfruitful. Sometimes we don’t immediately see the reward. We obey even when our hearts aren’t fully in it, and it feels like nothing is happening. But something always is. Even when we can’t feel it, obedience is never wasted.
It isn’t meant to be easy. It’s meant to be formative.
True obedience, obedience from the heart, carries with it a two-fold reward: it helps us to know God better, and it shapes us to become more like Him. To relate to Him and to reflect Him.
We may not always sense this in the moment. Sometimes the reward comes later or takes time to reveal itself. And sometimes it’s simply our realization of the reward that is delayed.
The well-known “wax on, wax off” scene from The Karate Kid can help to illustrate this. In the movie, Mr. Miyagi is supposed to be training Daniel to become a better karate fighter. But instead of practicing karate, Daniel is assigned a string of seemingly pointless chores: waxing cars, sanding floors, painting fences. At first, he resents it. It feels like busywork. But eventually, he’s enlightened to the truth—these repetitive movements were secretly training him. He was learning reflexes, muscle memory, and the foundational motions of karate without even realizing it.
Obedience often works the same way. It may seem pointless, joyless, and even repetitive. There may be no visible payoff. But, these acts of obedience are training and forming our spiritual reflexes, engraving the rhythms of grace into our hearts. Little by little, we are taking on the very character of God for ourselves and becoming the kind of people who naturally reflect God’s character and experience His joy.
Because that’s what we were made for: to bear His image. Obedience trains us to do just that. But even more than that, it draws us nearer to Him. We don’t just begin to reflect Him; we begin to relate to Him. By obeying, we actually come to know Him more personally.
It’s like an actor preparing to portray a real person in a biopic. To do it well, the actor doesn’t simply study facts. They absorb the person. They study their voice, expressions, posture, and habits. They learn to walk like them, talk like them, think like them. And by the end of filming, they often feel as though they know the person intimately—even if they’ve never met.
Obedience works like that. When we walk in His ways, we start to think His thoughts, love what He loves, and move how He moves. And though we haven’t yet seen Him face to face, we come to know Him more deeply through the practice of living like Him.
It may seem strange or even counterintuitive, that this an effective way God has provided for us to know Him better. Seemingly, the easiest way to get to know a person would be to meet them face to face. Now, that is what we have in store for us as believers on the other side of this life. We will get to meet Him face to face one day, but for now, this “actor in a biopic” model is a powerful way to get to know Him better until that day.
What a stunning thought: to prepare our whole lives to portray the character of Christ—and then one day, to meet Him face to face. What actor wouldn’t treasure the chance to meet their real-life subject? But, in our case, the person we get to study and emulate is no mere human but the Giver of life and the fountain of all joy.
So when obedience feels like a burden, we need to remember what it is really doing. It is training us. It is forming us. It is drawing us deeper into the heart of God. And it is helping us become what we were always meant to be: joyful image-bearers, made to reflect and enjoy the One who made us.
The Key to Joyful Obedience: Loving God for Who He Is
Everything I’ve said about the joy of obedience hinges on that one crucial truth: God must be your greatest love. God must be your greatest joy. At the heart of all true obedience lies a miracle—not of willpower, but of worship.
Obedience can only ever be a joy if the One you’re obeying is your joy. If your heart is not set on God Himself as the ultimate treasure of your soul, then obedience will always feel like a transaction. Because you’re trying to get something from God and not God Himself. If you don’t truly love God, you cannot truly obey. And you cannot white-knuckle your way into joyful obedience. You cannot manufacture in yourself the kind of heart that pleases God simply by resolving to do better.
The power to propel true obedience is the Gospel. It is the power of God (Romans 1:16). The Gospel is what changes the heart and ignites real spiritual desire. You don’t need a set of new techniques or more discipline to obey God. You need the Gospel. You need to believe that the God of the universe put on flesh to live and die for sinful man, experiencing the hell we rightly deserved so that we could experience the eternal life we don’t deserve, by grace alone through faith alone. It is precisely this Gospel that makes our hearts new when we first believe it and continues to make them new every day as we keep believing and growing in our love and knowledge of the truth of the Gospel.
You cannot truly obey God until your heart has been remade by the Gospel to delight in Him above all else. Without saving faith, the self is the gravitational center of all desire. Everything bends inward. Even our morality and our very best deeds orbit around the black hole of self-interest. Our ultimate joy is in ourselves, and fear and pride propel every act we do to uphold our worship of self.
But when someone truly sees Christ, when the Gospel penetrates the heart, it displaces the self at the center and enthrones God in its place. A new and greater joy is found.
This is what Jesus meant when He told the parable of the treasure hidden in a field. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44).
It’s not just that the man is suddenly trying to be sacrificial. It’s not that someone forced him to part with his possessions. But “in his joy,” he sells everything. Because he’s seen something worth more than everything he had before. That’s the picture of saving faith. That’s what happens when the beauty and worth of God are revealed to the heart through the Gospel. It awakens joy that makes obedience make sense.
You gladly lose your life when you’ve found a better one.
That’s why Jesus also says in Matthew 16:25, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Before Christ, our life was ourselves. Our desires, our ambitions, our pride and self-made identity—that was our world. That was the “everything” we had. But when we come to Christ, we sell that old life. We give it up, not because we’re forced to, but because we’ve found something infinitely better.
“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
That’s the exchange: the self for the Savior. We count everything we had before as worthless compared to the incredible worth of knowing God (Phil 3:8).
And the rest of the Christian life is simply learning to live in light of that exchange.
We remind ourselves again and again that the self is no longer our center. That our old desires, no matter how loud, are part of the life we left behind. Christ is our new life, and obedience is how we chase more of Him. Not to earn what we already have, but to experience more deeply what we’ve already been given. Because we simply love God and enjoy Him for who He is.
And yes, that love grows over time. Mature believers may know more of the joy that obedience brings, but even newer believers, with faith is as small as a mustard seed, carry within them the powerful spark of that love. If there is no spark at all, no sense of treasuring God for who He really is, then something essential is missing. For to be a Christian is, at its core, to have tasted and seen that the Lord is good—and to want more of Him.
You must see that He is better. That He is worth everything. Only then does obedience stop being a negotiation, and start becoming freedom.
Conclusion
Here’s a great secret at the center of all this: when we have true faith in Christ, the law and the Gospel are really in a sense both gospel. In different ways, both proclaim good news. One shows us the story of grace; the other, the standard of holiness. But both work to reveal the same thing: the beauty of God’s character.
The law is good news because it reveals the beauty of God’s holiness and leads us to Christ, and the Gospel is the ultimate good news because it provides the grace to fulfill what the law requires.
In our sin, the law condemned us. But in Christ, it becomes a window for our joy. Through Christ, we are not only forgiven—we are counted as law-keepers. And now, because of the Gospel, we can see the law not as a burden but as a blessing and an opportunity. We can rejoice in every way God has chosen to reveal Himself, because all of it draws us deeper into His joy.
Because the law and the Gospel both reveal God’s beauty, both are ultimately aimed at our joy. And joy is always what’s at stake when we talk about obedience. We will always act in accordance with what we believe will bring us the greatest joy. Which is why it’s essential to understand not just the rightness of obedience, but its deep connection to joy and beauty. At its core, obedience is about beauty and love.
The heart of obedience is to love and enjoy the most beautiful thing in the world, to be as interested in sharing that beauty as you are about enjoying it yourself, and to orient every thought and deed around enjoying and spreading the enjoyment of that supreme beauty. It is the joy of being captivated by something infinitely greater than yourself, enabling a life of blessed self-forgetfulness.
The heart of disobedience, by contrast, is irrational self-love. It is trading the substance of infinite beauty for the vapor of self-indulgence. It is not merely immoral; it is self-destructive, because it is the exact opposite of what we were made for. It destroys us from the inside out, but we just can’t help ourselves. It’s like drinking poison for the taste. Nearsightedness to the point of blindness.
God’s law is not the opposite of grace. It flows from the same loving heart that bled on the cross. If we are in Christ, the moral law of God becomes the ultimate path of freedom. We have been set free from the law, because a record of its perfect completion has been credited to us, but we have also, just as importantly, been truly set free for the law. Free to walk in it with joy. Free to see it not as a cage, but as a doorway into deeper fellowship with the God we love.
So if we ask, “If I’m saved by grace alone, what does obedience gain me?”, the answer is simple: everything our hearts long for. Because all your lasting joy is bound up in knowing and enjoying God. And obedience is how that joy grows.
God has made known to us the path of life. That path is obedience. And on that path, we do not find drudgery—we find Him. In His presence there is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11).
So walk in the law of liberty—not to earn life, but to enjoy it. For to obey is to love, and to love God is to truly live.
“I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life” (Psalm 119:93).
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the ESV® Bible.
God-centered Living 
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