Is It Possible To Perfectly Obey God's Commands?

The Israelites had done all the work just as the LORD had commanded Moses.  Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it just as the LORD commanded. So Moses blessed them. 
Exodus 39:42

 

You can skillfully and perfectly obey God's most specific commands to you. This is possible.  The Israelites did it.  A group of "stiff necked," stubborn complainers, like you and me, could complete the extremely specific commands that God gave them for the Tabernacle.  They did it.  Moses inspected it. 

 

Why do we feel we can't perfectly obey God's commands?  I know I've been taught this from the time I was baptized.  I literally heard these words:

 

"When you go down into that water, you will come up a different person.  Oh, you're still going to fall into sin, but you'll get up again."

 

Now how am I different person if I'm going to be falling into and out of sin, just like before I went into the water of baptism?  I'll be forgiven?  I'll have guarantee of heaven because of Jesus?  But I had that before I went into the water of baptism, where the old me is shown to be dead, and the new me is shown to the world alive. 

 

Listen to Moses speak to Israel at the end of his life:
The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors,  if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.  Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.  Deuteronomy 30:9b-11 (emphasis mine)

 

Not too difficult
Not beyond your reach

 

What was not too difficult or beyond the reach of the Israelites?

• Obeying the Lord their God
• Keeping His commands and decrees written in the Book of the Law
• Turning the LORD with all their hearts and souls

It was not too difficult for them to perfectly obey God's commands.
Nor is it too difficult for us.

 

What makes the difference?  Faith.  As it is written,

 

"Without faith, it is impossible to please the LORD."

 

Faith is what makes perfect obedience of God's commands possible.

 

It's not the number of commands  that is the issue, as some say.  They make it seem like the "630"
laws of Israel were impossible to fully obey. 

 

• First of all, God never commanded them to obey 630 laws a day.  The laws were contextual and relational. Some involved farmers, some soldiers, some priests, some marriages. 
• Second, they obeyed very numerous, specific, and detailed commands from God perfectly, like in building the Tabernacle. 
• Third, Adam and Eve, without a "sinful nature," had only one command to obey, and they disobeyed it.  An easy command at that.  So the number of commands, and the difficulty of commands is not the issue at all.  It's faith in God, the only way to please God and perfectly obey him.

As R.A. Torrey skillfully said,
"Every act of sin is an act of distrust in God.  Trusting God deprives sin and temptation of all their power.  He who trusts God will do right though the heavens fall."

 

It is possible to perfectly obey God's commands when we do so by faith in Jesus.