Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
Philippians 4:9 KJV
I felt IF and Do just go hand in hand. The Old Testament Covenant hinged on a people doing what God had commanded. From the beginning of Genesis we find God’s command in the garden required activity on the part of Adam and Eve, a daily doing. When Cain is tempted, we find God’s word to Him ~
Genesis 4:7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
The temptation is to move away from the ‘doing well’ to not walk in submission and obedience to His instructions given. Yet God has set this immoveable standard for us, His people ~
Exodus 15:26 “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes
Lev. 22:31 “So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the Lord.
Dt 28:1 And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today,
We learn from Joshua, as he begins his leadership journey, he has one simple instruction.
Joshua 1:8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Jesus aligns us with this same thought from John 15 when he tells us we are to abide in Him and His word for apart from Him we can do nothing; and his instructions to his disciples carry a great weight about our doing ~
Matthew 12:49 “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven
There are many things we do and they all bear some kind of fruit in our lives but what we are looking for is the fruit that endures unto eternity. We want everlasting fruit. Fruit that is not wood, hay or stubble and the only way we can avoid bad fruit is through the abiding we do WITH him.
As we join in this unity with the Father, through Jesus the word, by the power of His Spirit, we find many times instructions that challenge our will and cause fear to arise perhaps tempting us to withdraw. But as God told Cain, you must master the sin that tempts you!
Tempted in all points as we are, Jesus met and overcame the agony of His soul through His prayer in the garden; coming to an end of himself, he was prepared and strengthened to do His Fathers will. We have never been required to DO in our own strength. Paul learned that when he was weak then He was strong, because grace abounding to Him was sufficient.
Mankind’s redemption was dependent upon Jesus’ doing. Do we live with the awareness our “doing’ is not only impacting us, but others? Paul was confident the things he taught, and displayed were eternal truths that produced life for not only him, but others. Are we confident our doings are life giving and eternal?
We all meet times when we would prefer to live out our own will and way, but the blessing is only in the obedience of doing His.
John 13:17 IF you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.