Hebrews 11:6
(KJV)
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
In the New Testament, to Trust, and, to Obey, are one and the same thing. To conjure up a doctrine foreign to the Spirit of Christ is to say that all one has to do to please God is to obey His commandments. [Jim]
Dictionary.com
o·bey [oh-bey] verb (used with object)
1. to comply with or follow the commands, restrictions, wishes, or instructions of: to obey one's parents.
2. to comply with or follow (a command, restriction, wish, instruction, etc.).
3. (of things) to respond conformably in action to: The car obeyed the slightest touch of the steering wheel.
4. to submit or conform in action to (some guiding principle, impulse, one's conscience, etc.).
To trust God is the New Testament form of the word to obey. Other forms of the word would be, to BELIEVE, to have FAITH
But without FAITH it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must TRUST. . .
According to Jesus, what is the greatest commandment?
Luke 10:27 (KJV)
And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
According to Jesus, to LOVE is the greatest commandment! Not following the 10 commandments. It is impossible to follow the commandments God gave. Nobody can. Why would the Apostle Paul say he was the chief sinner?
1 Timothy 1:15 (KJV)
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
Notice, Paul says, “I am” not “I was”; He still is a sinner. The man who wrote 2/3 of the New testament is still a sinner. Paul also wrote,
Romans 7: 17-20 (KJV)
But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
Paul says, “I can will it, but I can't do it.” For someone to harp on obeying the commandments to keep your salvation is heresy! Paul further says,
Galatians 3 (MSG)
Trust in Christ, Not the Law
1 You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it's obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.
2-4 Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!
5-6 Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don't these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.
7-8 Is it not obvious to you that persons who put their trust in Christ (not persons who put their trust in the law!) are like Abraham: children of faith? It was all laid out beforehand in Scripture that God would set things right with non-Jews by faith. Scripture anticipated this in the promise to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed in you."
9-10 So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith—this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: "Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law."
11-12 The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: "The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that's the real life." Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: "The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them."
13-14 Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse. And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham's blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God's life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing—just the way Abraham received it.
Bingo!
References:
Translations were retrieved from http://www.biblegateway.com/ BibleGateway.com © Copyright 1995-2010 Gospel Communications International
King James Version (KJV)—Public Domain/ 1604, King James I of England
The Message Bible (MSG)—Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995 by Eugene H. Peterson
Jim Hughes (Jim) — Copyright © 2012 The Joyful Heart; http://thejoyfulheart2011.blogspot.com
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