Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our Reading titled, Obedience is a Choice, was written by Cindy Hess Casper.

Winters in the Netherlands seldom bring a lot of snow, but it can get cold enough to freeze

over the canals.

When my husband Tom was growing up there, his parents had a family rule.

Stay off the ice until it is thick enough to hold the weight of a horse.

Because horses would leave evidence of their presence behind,

Dom and his buddies decided to get some manure off the road.

They threw it on the thin ice and ventured out onto the surface.

No harm came to them, nor were they discovered,

but they knew in their hearts they'd been disobedient.

Obedience doesn't always come naturally.

The choice to obey or not to obey can spring from a sense of duty or fear of punishment.

But we can also choose to obey out of love and respect for those in authority over us. In John 14, Jesus challenged his disciples by saying,

Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.

Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching.

It's not always an easy choice to obey, but the power of the spirit living

within us gives us the desire and ability to obey him. With his enablement, we can continue to

follow the commands of the one who loves us most, not out of fear of punishment, but out of love.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from John chapter 14

verses 15 through 24. If you love me, keep my my commands and i will ask the father and he will give you

another advocate to help you and be with you forever the spirit of truth the world cannot accept him

because it neither sees him nor knows him but you know him for he lives with you and will be in you

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