Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Free for Joyful Obedience

We were reciting a prayer during worship that included the sentence, "Free us for joyful obedience through Jesus Christ our Lord." I started thinking about the meaning of this sentence and how it applies to our seven-day practical faith walk.

First, there's this idea of "freedom for." I explored such language a few months ago in this devotion: https://www.ceciltaylorministries.com/post/wednesday-devotional-freedom-from-and-freedom-for. Basically, God gives us freedom FROM so that we may have freedom FOR. We may think God's rules limit us, but they actually free us from wrong ways of living so we can pursue better options.

When I see the word "joyful," I think of God's presence. The Fruit of the Spirit known as Joy is based on God's constant presence with us. We think of God sitting on a throne in heaven, but of course, God can be multiple places at once. With us always is the Holy Spirit promised by Christ in his final meeting with his disciples during Holy Week. We experience joy when we connect into the Spirit's presence.

The root word for "obedience" is "to listen." We can only obey if we listen first. Once we listen and understand, we can do God's will.

Adding these together, the prayer asks for God to help us find freedom from the things that weigh us down, so that we can experience God's presence and listen closely so that we can do God's will.

All this is done "through Jesus Christ our Lord," who changed the relationship between God and humans. We have direct access to God's Spirit because of Jesus. We can know who God is and can know God's will.

To put our faith into practice is to recognize the gifts of our Lord that connect us to God so that we can listen and act each day as disciples of Jesus.

You can hardly find better examples of joyful obedience than my guests on the Practical Faith Academy podcast. To enrich your faith journey, search for and listen to it on Apple, Spotify, Audacy, iHeart, YouTube, Podbean, and more.