the Scriptures, and obedience. By Arthur Pink

1 John chapter 2 verses 3 through 6

We know that we have come to know Him if we obey His commands. The man who says, I know Him, but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys His word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in Him. Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.

The grand design of Scripture is not merely to inform, but to transform, not to fill the mind only, but to bring the will into glad submission to God. The one who truly profits from the Word is the one who is brought into a life of increasing obedience to its precepts. Anything less than this is self-deception. As our Lord solemnly warned, Obedience is not optional in the Christian life. It is essential. It is the evidence of a heart made alive by grace.

The Scriptures were not given to be admired from a distance or merely studied as literature, but to be obeyed in the power of the Spirit. To profit from the Word is to have its commands inscribed upon the heart and worked out into the life by cheerful obedience. When the soul is brought under the rule of Scripture, obedience ceases to be a burden and becomes a delight. The believer no longer picks and chooses what to follow, but bows to all that God has spoken. Like Abraham, he obeys not knowing where it will lead. Like David, he prays, teach me, O Lord, to follow your decrees, then I will keep them to the end. And like Jesus, he declares, I have come to do your will, O God.

This obedience is neither forced nor meritorious. It is the grateful response of a redeemed heart. It is the spirit-wrought fruit of the new birth. The more the believer feeds upon the Word, the more he comes to love the God of the Word, and love always expresses itself in willing submission. This is love for God, to obey His commands, and His commands are not burdensome.

Are we profiting from the Word in this way? Has it made us more tender to sin, more submissive to God's will, more faithful in our daily walk? Do we tremble at His threats and rejoice in His commands? Are we doers of the Word or hearers only? The blessed man is not the one who merely reads or hears, but the one who delights in the law of the Lord and walks in it.