In theory it's easy to obey God, in practice it's really hard

If we read the Old Testament, we can see many examples of the Israelites disobeying God. God tells them not to do something, and they do it. Or He tells them to do something, and they don't do it. We feel like saying "Just listen to God!" It seems so simple to see what the right thing is to do.

But we are also disobeying exactly as they are. Even if we don't have the voice of God speaking to us directly, or through the prophets, we still have the voice of God from the Bible. It makes it clear what God likes to see us do. Yet we too have the same struggles to do this. All too often we give into laziness or selfishness instead of doing what God wants. 

This problem is expressed most clearly in the New Testament in Galatians:

For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. 

Galatians 5:17 

If someone who wasn't human (for example, an alien or an AI) were to read the Old Testament, then it would likely conclude that it's pretty easy to be human - all you need to do is listen to God and carry out His plans. But in the practical reality of actually being human, it's incredibly hard to do this, even when we're trying. Being human is one of those things that is really easy in theory, but unbelievably difficult in practice.

This doesn't mean we just give up and stop trying. If anything, it highlights the need to keep trying to obey God. We need to keep going, even though it's hard. Just because Jesus paid the price for our sins does not mean we should keep sinning. We want to be more and more like our role model Jesus. But we shouldn't expect that to be easy in practice, even though it sounds easy in theory.

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