Gospel-centered Obedience: The Command

The first step is THE COMMAND. A command can be anything from "Do not steal" (Ex. 20:15) to "Put on the whole armor of God" (Eph. 6:11). Commands, as I'm intending, are not mere moral obligations. They are any action, character trait, or motivation that a person should have. Perhaps the easiest way to understand this is to say that COMMANDS are anything in us that reflects the character and nature of God (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

Galatians 2:16 states:

[16] yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:16 ESV) http://esv.to/Ga2.16

A great place to start is by understanding that works are not a matter of justification, or, as some would put it, salvation. We cannot EARN our way to God, and we cannot PAY Him back for His gift of salvation. This is important because,   "There are fundamentally only two doctrines of salvation: that salvation is from God, and that salvation is from ourselves" (B.B. Warfield)." The latter comes natural to us, but the former is counter-intuitive. It doesn't make sense that we should have our debts paid for us (our sins forgiven) and be given every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph. 1:3)... but we'll get to that in step 3.

Romans 12:1-2 says:

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

What is the thrust behind presenting our bodies as living sacrifices? We have God's mercies in view when we  do this. This implies that both a remembering of Romans 1-11 (the Gospel) and an intentional act of the will to sacrifice are at work when we obey. But, as we'll see, it is only by remembering God's mercy that we can  consistently and fully obey God's commands... because rehearsing the gospel is a big part of how God changes our hearts. 

To be continued...