Do it and do it now!

One of the Bible's funny ideas is that obedience, submission and self-denial for the sake of a higher power brings joy and fullness, even life. We are more happy if we live with handed-down guidelines and rules than we are with our self-made freedom.

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy my be complete. John 15:10-11

If we don't believe this, it is because we only know imperfect, self-serving authorities and we are ignorant of our Creator God's knowledge of us. But he is wise and loving in a way that parents, teachers, politicians and kings never are, and he knows us more intimately than our partners, even than we know ourselves.