Transformed by Obedience

Transformed by Obedience

By Julie Taylor

The word ‘obedience’ often conjures up negative thoughts. The world often associates the word ‘obedience’ with punishment or reward. In many contexts, it is associated with loss of autonomy or forced submission. People often equate obedience with blind compliance, where personal freedom and independent thought are sacrificed. Historically, obedience has been used to justify oppressive systems, authoritarian rule, and rigid hierarchies, making the word feel restrictive rather than liberating.

People often want to run the other way when it comes to being obedient to anything, including Christ, because it challenges our desire for independence:

We want control of our own lives.

We want to chart our own course without restriction.

While the world often sees obedience as restrictive, Jesus taught that true obedience leads to freedom.

John 14:23-24 NIV

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

There’s no way around the word obedience when we talk about discipleship in Christ. Jesus plainly states in John 14:23, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.”

The world's version of freedom isolates, while Christ's freedom connects—to God, to others, to a life of purpose that’s larger than ourselves. Jesus’s call to obedience isn’t about control—it’s an invitation to a life free from the burdens of our mistakes, fears, shame, and anxieties; it means we don’t have to live under the suffocating pressure to go it alone.

What Jesus is asking is countercultural because the world constantly tells us that personal freedom is the ultimate goal: Autonomy, self-expression, and individual choice; my life, my way. This kind of freedom says, “You have to define your own truth, carry your own burdens, and forge your own path.” That sounds pretty good at first, but eventually, it becomes crushing. This form of ‘freedom’ yields loneliness, isolation, and spiritual depletion: The pressure to constantly redefine ourselves, making every decision, facing every tragedy, proving our worth, and shaping our own destinies without any higher guidance.

If we love Jesus, then we should want to reflect Him— not just acknowledge His goodness while we admire Him from a distance. This love is meant to change us, shaping us into His likeness through grace and discipleship. To follow Jesus while resisting this transformation is like trying to be in a relationship while refusing to engage—it doesn’t lead to real connection.

Jesus’s teachings challenge the existing social, political, and economic culture, because Jesus’s presence exposes the darkness in human hearts.

While the world tends to focus on punishment—who deserves what consequences, often framing what’s good and right in terms of winning arguments, proving superiority, or enforcing judgment, God’s approach is rooted in grace, patience, and love. What’s more, God’s justice comes with mercy, offering forgiveness and the opportunity to grow spiritually through His guidance.

The world often sees success as a competition, focused on the rushed frenzy to have more than the next person; more wealth, more power, more influence. This often brings out the worst in us, rather than our best. God’s kingdom operates on kindness, generosity, modesty, and humility.

The world places importance and value on who’s up on the latest trend, bending to the changing whimsy of societies fickle expectations. It’ll never be enough. It’ll never be there to comfort us in our darkest moments.

In the very same verse, John 14:23, Jesus adds, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” It is easy to focus on the controversial word, obey,’ at the beginning of this verse while forgoing the rest of the verse. This is an invitation to a personal relationship with God the Father, God the Creator, and He’s extending it to everyone!

No one is excluded. No one is categorized, sorted, collated, or labeled, all are welcomed into a relationship with God.

Since Jesus invites anyone to come to Him, we shouldn’t restrict anyone from receiving our love and forgiveness either. This is more difficult than most of us want to admit sometimes, and this just highlights our need for the Holy Spirit.

As we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, we begin to reflect love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. With our cooperation and participation, The Holy Spirit will redirect us when we need it; leading us to turn away from what separates us from God. As our relationship with God grows and matures, we begin to love with His heart. We become more tolerant and understanding. We approach conflict with grace, forgiveness, and compassion. This doesn’t just happen once, it continues as we grow in our discipleship with Christ. This transformation is a divine, and beautiful process fueled by God’s love and grace that reshapes us from the inside out.

Following Jesus isn’t just about agreeing with His teachings; it’s about letting those teachings shape who we are. This isn’t just guidance from afar, but the presence of the Father and the Son dwelling within us through the Holy Spirit. Despite all of our flaws God is actively seeking a deeper relationship with us, all of us. Rather than demanding that we carry everything alone, Jesus invites us into a life where surrender isn’t weakness, but rest.

We’re offered an opportunity to be transformed by God’s Grace, to be in a right relationship with Him because of God’s love for us, and Jesus’s obedience to that will. Jesus was obedient to God while He was walking around as a man here on earth. He didn’t say, “Well I’ll do all the teaching, healing and miracles, but I’m not going to submit to being whipped, and You can forget about that whole cross thing, there’s got to be a better way.”

As we allow God to soften our hearts, reshape our desires, obedience to Him becomes an act of love not duty or burden; it’s a joyful response rather than a restriction. And this transformation isn’t forced; it’s a relationship where God moves and we move with Him. Our obedience to Christ doesn’t restrict us; it restores us to what we were meant to be. It’s not about losing individuality—it’s about finding the fullest version of ourselves in Christ.