Christian Obedience: God’s Empowerment or an Act of Our Will?

Published On: December 8, 2025

Every Christian knows the struggle. You’re fighting a besetting sin—again. You’ve resolved to do better—again. And you’re wondering: Should I try harder, or just “let go and let God”? Is obedience ultimately about divine empowerment or human willpower?

The question itself presents a false choice. Scripture offers something far richer: obedience is God’s work in us that we genuinely perform. The Bible teaches that God doesn’t merely assist our obedience—He produces it in us. Yet He does so in such a way that we willingly, actively obey. God is the single, ultimate source of our obedience, working within us to produce both the desire and the deed. Our obedience, while truly and actively ours, is entirely His gift.

This is monergism—the doctrine that God alone is the effective cause of our regeneration and sanctification. It’s not that God does 50% and we do 50%, or even that God does 99% and we contribute 1%. Rather, God does 100%—yet He does it in and through our genuine human agency. Let’s see how Scripture unfolds this glorious truth.

THE BONDAGE OF THE UNREGENERATE WILL

To understand how God empowers obedience, we must first grasp our condition apart from grace. Scripture paints a sobering picture of the human heart before conversion.

Jeremiah declares, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (17:9).
Jesus taught that “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
Paul adds that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Romans 8:7-8, emphasis added).

Notice that word: cannot. This is what theologians call the “bondage of the will”—not that we lack the ability to make choices, but that we’re morally unable to choose God or genuine goodness apart from His intervention.

Augustine of Hippo illustrated this perfectly when he recounted stealing pears as a young man. He didn’t steal from hunger or need—he had better pears at home. He stole for the sheer pleasure of doing wrong, then threw the pears to pigs. This, Augustine realised, captured the essence of human depravity: we don’t sin because we’re forced to; we sin because we want to. Our will is “free” in the sense that no one coerces us externally, yet enslaved in that we consistently, willingly choose against God. This is bondage indeed.

GOD’S TRANSFORMING GRACE: THE NEW BIRTH

But God doesn’t leave us in this condition. In one of Scripture’s most beautiful promises, He declares through Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and cause you to walk in my statutes” (36:26-27).

Notice the divine initiative: I will give, I will remove, I will cause. God doesn’t merely make obedience possible—He makes us willing. This is regeneration, or the “new birth” (John 3:3-8). We are “born again, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

This is crucial: God doesn’t coerce us into obedience against our will. Rather, He changes our will itself. He transforms our deepest desires so we can begin to love what we formerly hated and hate what we formerly loved. As Paul writes, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The stunning reality is captured in Philippians 2:13: “God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him” (NLT). God doesn’t just enable our obedience—He works in us to produce both the desire to obey and the ability to carry it out. This is empowerment at the deepest level.

THE BELIEVER’S ACTIVE OBEDIENCE

Does this mean we’re passive? Absolutely not. The very next verse after that promise of divine empowerment commands: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Scripture is filled with urgent imperatives calling believers to active obedience.

Paul uses athletic metaphors: “Run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24). “I discipline my body and keep it under control” (9:27). The letter to the Colossians commands, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (3:5)—an active, violent metaphor for fighting sin.

Here’s the beautiful paradox: we genuinely do the obeying. We run, we fight, we put sin to death. Yet this activity flows entirely from God’s enabling grace. The same passage that commands us to “work out” immediately explains “for God is at work in you” (Philippians 2:12-13). Our working flows from His working. Our obedience is real, but it’s empowered obedience.

Think of it this way: when you turn on a lamp, the light is real—but it’s entirely dependent on the power flowing through the cord. Cut the power, and the light immediately dies. Our obedience is like that light: genuinely ours, yet entirely dependent on God’s continuous empowerment.

LIVING IN THE TENSION

This both/and reality protects us from two deadly errors.

First, it guards against quietism—the “let go and let God” passivity that neglects spiritual disciplines and personal responsibility. God works through means: prayer, Scripture reading, fellowship, active resistance of temptation. We’re called to fight.
Second, it prevents moralistic self-reliance—the grinding, joyless willpower that forgets our absolute dependence on the Spirit. Apart from Christ we can do nothing (John 15:5). Our striving must always flow from resting in His grace.

The practical application? We’re to pray as if everything depends on God—because it does. And we’re to work as if everything depends on us—because God works through our active obedience. We fight sin vigorously while resting in His enabling power.

Paul captured this perfectly: “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). It was Paul working—yet it was grace empowering every effort.

THE ASSURANCE THIS BRINGS

This truth should humble us (all glory goes to God) and encourage us deeply. If obedience depended ultimately on our willpower, we’d all be doomed. But since it flows from God’s grace and His enabling, we have confident hope: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

So does God empower obedience, or is it an act of the believer’s will? We say yes to both. Fully. The God who commands is the God who empowers—and in that divine empowerment, our will finds its truest freedom.

RELATED FAQs

How does the Reformed view differ from Arminian or Wesleyan perspectives on obedience? Arminian theology teaches that God provides prevenient (preceding) grace that enables fallen humans to cooperate with God’s offer of salvation, but individuals must exercise their free will to accept or reject it—making obedience a synergistic partnership. Similarly, Wesleyans emphasise believers can resist God’s grace and must actively cooperate with the sanctification process. The Reformed view makes better sense of passages like Philippians 2:13, which doesn’t say God makes obedience possible while we actualise it, but that “God works in you, both to will and to work”—He produces the willing itself. As John Piper notes, this safeguards the biblical truth that salvation and sanctification from start to finish are “of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9), leaving no room for human boasting while still affirming genuine human agency.

Doesn’t monergism make us robots or puppets? This objection misunderstands the nature of divine sovereignty and human freedom. Robots act against or without their desires; monergism teaches us God changes our desires so we willingly choose what pleases Him. As RC Sproul explained, God doesn’t violate our will but liberates it—we become “free indeed” (John 8:36) when freed from sin’s bondage. JI Packer puts it perfectly: God “so works upon our minds and dispositions that whereas formerly we would not obey, now we will.” Far from making us less human, God’s transforming grace makes us truly human—imaging God as we were always meant to, with renewed minds that freely delight in His law (Romans 7:22).
If God causes our obedience, why does Scripture command us to obey? God’s sovereignty doesn’t eliminate means; it establishes them. The same God who ordains the end (our obedience) ordains the means (commands, exhortations, warnings). As Kevin DeYoung observes, imperatives in Scripture aren’t evidence against divine sovereignty but the very means through which God accomplishes His purposes in us. Paul demonstrates this perfectly: he commands the Philippians to “work out your salvation” precisely because “God is working in you” (2:12-13)—the divine working is the ground for, not the elimination of, human effort. The commands aren’t futile; they’re the instruments God uses to produce the obedience He’s decreed, making our striving both necessary and fully dependent on grace.

What about passages that seem to emphasise human responsibility, like “Choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15)? Reformed theology fully affirms human responsibility; what it denies is human ability apart from grace. Commands to choose don’t prove we have libertarian free will any more than Jesus’ command “Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43) proved Lazarus could resurrect himself. Michael Horton explains these imperatives reveal our obligation before God while our inability to meet that obligation drives us to dependence on His grace. Joshua’s command was given to the covenant community already redeemed from Egypt—a people God had chosen and delivered. Reformed theology insists both things are true: we are genuinely responsible to obey, and we are utterly dependent on God’s grace to do so, which is why Scripture contains both imperatives (commands) and indicatives (declarations of what God has done).

How does this view relate to the doctrine of perseverance of the saints? The Reformed understanding of obedience is foundational to the perseverance of the saints (what some call “eternal security”). If sanctification were ultimately up to us—if our obedience depended on our contribution rather than God’s monergistic work—we’d all eventually fall away, because our wills are fickle and our flesh is weak. But because “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion” (Philippians 1:6), our perseverance is as certain as God’s faithfulness. Sinclair Ferguson notes God doesn’t merely help those who help themselves; He helps those who cannot help themselves by transforming them into people who willingly persevere. This gives believers not presumption but profound assurance: the same grace that saved us continues to sustain and sanctify us all the way home.
What role do spiritual disciplines play if God produces all our obedience? Spiritual disciplines are crucial precisely because they’re the means God uses to sanctify us—monergism establishes the importance of means, not eliminates them. John Owen, the great Puritan theologian, wrote extensively on mortification of sin, emphasising that we must be “killing sin or it will be killing you,” yet he grounded all this active warfare in the Spirit’s enabling power. Donald Whitney explains that disciplines aren’t meritorious works that earn God’s favour but channels of grace through which God works transformation. We pray, read Scripture, fellowship, and fast not to twist God’s arm but because these are the very means He’s appointed to conform us to Christ’s image. God produces the fruit; the disciplines are the roots and branches through which His life flows.

How do contemporary Reformed scholars address the charge that monergism leads to passivity or “quietism”? Leading Reformed theologians vigorously reject any form of passivity. Tim Keller argues understanding grace as monergistic actually produces more vigorous effort, not less, because it removes the anxiety of self-justification while empowering genuine transformation. Ligon Duncan points out the Puritans—the most monergistic tradition in church history—were famous for their strenuous pursuit of holiness, not passivity. The difference is motivation: synergism produces either pride (if we succeed) or despair (if we fail), while monergism produces humble gratitude that energizes radical obedience. As JD Greear writes, “The gospel doesn’t make you less responsible; it makes you more responsive.” When we understand that God supplies both the desire and the power, we fight harder—because we know our efforts aren’t in vain and that God guarantees the victory.

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