Heart-Based Obedience
By Roger Hornbeck

The Christian community is caught "between a rock and a hard place." We are attempting to regain the Gospel of grace and at the same time avoid licensing sin. If we focus on the biblical call to righteousness and holiness, we risk legalism and being labeled Pharisees. If we emphasis love, grace and forgiveness, it seems that sin is unleashed. We must rediscover the biblical path through this very dangerous mine field. I believe that the biblical teaching on the heart provides a practical tool for avoiding the extremes of license and legalism.

To understand heart obedience, we will need to consider the biblical passages that call our hearts to obedience We will then develop a system that will allow us to evaluate the actual obedience that is coming from our hearts as opposed to obedience that flows from a religious desire to hide our hearts. From this verifiable understanding of our hearts and our obedience, we can develop skills and habits that increase the ability of our hearts to obey our God.

While there is no question that the Bible calls us to obedience, many are confused about the nature of obedience; what does obedience entail and how do we become obedient? There are four passages that tie obedience to the heart: Romans 6:17-18; Deut 30:2, 10, 17; Jer. 7:24; Eph. 6:5. As we look at these passages, we will want to ask ourselves, 1) What is the relationship between heart and obedience, and, 2) are all scripture passages that talk about obedience dependent on heart conditon, whether the term heart is used in the passage or not.

Key Heart Obedience Passages
1 Romans 6:17-18
17But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
This is a strategic passage for understanding the Bible’s teaching on obedience. Without the teaching presented here, one could conclude from other passages calling for obedience that obedience was simply the conforming of my actions to an external code or list of requirements. Paul reminds us that actions are not enough. The desire to act correctly must come from our hearts. It is against this backdrop of the heart that Jesus' criticisms of the Pharisees and other religious leaders of His time makes sense. They were attempting to understand and obey the law that God had given them. Yet, Jesus claimed that even though they zealously sought to act right, their obedience was still deficient. This theme is developed in the article, "Lessons from Comtemporary Pharisees," on the Heart Cry Ministries web site. Even though this passage ties our obedience to our hearts, it does show us how they are connected.

2 Deut. 30:2, 10, 17
2and you return to the LORD your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons,

10if you obey the LORD your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and soul.

17“But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, 18I declare to you today that you shall surely perish.
Deuteronomy, one of the books of the Law, links obedience to the heart. Before my time of exploring the importance of the heart to God, I would read this passage and conclude that it was addressing the extent of obedience rather than the source of our obedience. It would then mean that I am to completely obey God. While that is true, the passage is identifying the source of obedience rather than the extent of our obedience. Our obedience is to come from our heart. This demands that we answer the questions, what is my heart and how do I know that my obedient actions are coming from my heart? In addition to these calls for heart obedience, consider that the same point is supported by warning against heart disobedience in Jeremiah 7:24.

3 Ephesians 6:5
5Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; 6not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.
Addressing the practical issues of the workplace, Paul exhorts believers to offer heart obedience to their employers. Heart obedience is not the religious dialogue spoken within the walls of church. It invades the dark corners of our workweek. The phrase, "in the sincerity of your heart", provides a clue to the connection between the heart and obedience. In another place, I have defined the heart as the center and source of all our actions (WEBSITE). One of the dilemmas created by the Fall is that our hearts (the source of all we do) became broken by the sin of Adam and Eve. All sinful actions came from the heart before they become actions. Even good actions can be defiled by our broken hearts. We can do the right thing for the wrong reasons. For example, we treat someone lovingly to get something from them. We act so as to hide the fear, anger, etc. in our hearts. The Pharisees acted religously out of pride, to impress others, and to hide the death that lived in their hearts. God wants our hearts because right hearts always produce right behavior, but bad hearts always produce bad behavior even if the actions in itself is good.

4 These four verses specifically tie our obedience to our hearts, but the Bible is full of passages that remind us over and over that God wants who we are, as well as, what we believe and do to find their source in our hearts. For more biblical passages connecting heart and obedience check out the other articles at www.heartcryministries.com .

In the next article, we will continue this study of heart-based obedience. We will explore what the Bible says about how we obey from our hearts, how to form a strategy for evaluating our obedience, and how to develope heart-based obedience in our daily lives.