What does obedience actually have to do with loving God? Is obedience a way of earning God's love—or is it the evidence of a love and trust that already exist?

In this episode of Milk to Meat, we explore why Scripture consistently connects love for God with obedience. Love is an inward reality, but obedience gives that love an outward expression. As 1 John 5:3 tells us, love for God leads us to keep His commands. The direction matters: love produces obedience; obedience does not earn love.

We trace that truth through the larger story of redemption, beginning in the Garden, where humanity's disobedience reveals a failure to trust God's wisdom and goodness. Then we turn to Jesus—the obedient Son who reverses Adam's rebellion. Where humanity chooses its own will, Jesus declares, “Not my will, but yours be done.” His obedience carries Him all the way to the cross and through death into resurrection.

Finally, we examine why obedience isn't opposed to grace but is actually the fruit of grace. God loves, gives, rescues, and reconciles us. We receive, trust, obey, and are transformed. We don't obey so that God will love us. We obey because we have been loved.

Why is trusting God so difficult—especially when what we see doesn't seem to match what we believe about Him?

In this episode of Milk to Meat, we take the conversation about obedience one step deeper. Obedience isn't merely evidence that we love God; it's also evidence that we believe God loves us.

When God tells us to forgive, we have to trust that His way is better than revenge. When He calls us to generosity, we have to trust that our security isn't ultimately found in what we possess. When He tells us to love our enemies, pursue holiness, or surrender control, we're being asked to trust that God's ways are better than our own.

That's why obedience is ultimately an act of faith:

I obey because I trust God.

I trust God because I know His character.

I know His character because He has revealed His love.

But what happens when trusting God becomes difficult?

We go back to the garden and discover that the struggle began with the Fall. The serpent didn't simply convince humanity to break a command—he convinced humanity to question God's goodness.

“Did God really say...?”

The lie was ultimately this: God can't be trusted. God is holding something good back from you.

And we still wrestle with that lie today.

We want to understand God's plan. We want to know the outcome. We want God to explain Himself before we obey. And when suffering comes, unanswered prayers remain unanswered, relationships fall apart, or life takes a direction we never expected, the question becomes much harder:

“If God is good, why is this happening?”

So what do we do when what we see doesn't seem to match what we believe about God?

We explore how faith learns to trust God's character even when we don't understand His circumstances, why our limited perspective can make God's goodness difficult to see, and why the cross gives us the ultimate reason to believe that God is good—even when the story doesn't make sense yet.

Because ultimately, faith isn't trusting God because we understand everything He's doing.

Faith is trusting God because we know who He is.

And sometimes the deepest obedience is simply saying:

“I don't understand, but I know who I'm trusting.”

What does the Bible actually mean when it commands, “You shall not murder”? Does the Sixth Commandment prohibit every taking of human life—or does Scripture distinguish murder from self-defense, military service, law enforcement, capital punishment, and other circumstances?

In this 2nd Helping episode of Milk to Meat, we begin with the Hebrew behind Exodus 20:13 and examine how Scripture itself distinguishes intentional murder from other forms of killing. From Cain and Abel and the cities of refuge to government authority, soldiers, police officers, defending your family, and the use of force, we follow the biblical text to understand the value of human life and the moral responsibility involved when a life is taken.

Then we turn to Jesus' words in Matthew 5, where He takes the commandment even deeper—moving beyond the final act of murder to the anger, resentment, and hatred from which violence can grow.

The question isn't simply, “Did someone die?” Scripture also forces us to ask about intent, circumstances, culpability, necessity, and the value of every person made in the image of God.