Obedience or Control?

What if what you’ve been calling obedience… was actually control?

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In this episode, we’re unpacking one of the most misunderstood topics in Christian culture—obedience—and how it’s often been taught in ways that lead to fear, pressure, and silence instead of freedom.

If you’ve ever:

• felt like you couldn’t question authority
• struggled to speak up without feeling “rebellious”
• stayed in situations that didn’t feel right because you thought it was “obedience”
• or felt anxious trying to do everything “right” in your faith

...then this episode will help you start making sense of that.

We’re breaking down the difference between:

• obedience vs control
• being led by the Spirit vs being driven by fear
• surrender vs losing your voice

And we’re grounding it in Scripture—looking at how Jesus actually invited people into obedience through love, not pressure.

Because real obedience doesn’t come from fear.
It comes from relationship.

✨ You’re allowed to have discernment.
✨ You’re allowed to ask questions.
✨ And you’re allowed to follow God without losing yourself.

John 14:15-21 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...
Romans 8:14 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...
Matthew 11:28-30 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...
2 Timothy 1:7 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...

Transcript

What if what you've been calling obedience is actually control? I think for a lot of us Christian women, we were never actually taught the difference between obedience and control. We we've just been told be obedient, be submissive, be a good Christian mom, wife, woman. And depending on the church context in which you grew up, you were taught what that looked like specifically.

And you likely didn't even question it because you wanted to do the right thing. I remember when I was twenty nine, I surrendered my life to Christ. I was so hungry to honor the Lord and learn everything his word said. And I my motivation was

Amanda Davison (01:26.86)
I remember when I was 29 and surrendered my life to Christ. I had this really healthy, obvious motivation that we probably hopefully all have after doing that to where we just want to do it. Everything that God wants us to do. We just want to live in grow and be who we were created to be. And I just so badly wanted to do that. I wanted to honor Him and everything I did. Slowly, what

started out as that pure motivation got really twisted because I wasn't only receiving what that was to look like from the Lord and from Scripture. I was receiving that from other teachings and from other Christian women and from just the Christian community at large that I lived in. And unfortunately that did not line up fully with scripture. Somewhere along the way

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But somewhere along the way, obedience stopped feeling like freedom and started feeling more like pressure. My desire to be who God made me to be was mixed with these deeper messages. And soon I wasn't focused primarily or solely on pleasing God. I also knew, without really consciously thinking about it, I needed to fit into man's idea of who I was supposed to be. And

This just got very blurred for me. Was I doing things for the Lord? Or was it really for these people to fit into their definition of an acceptable Christian wife or mom or woman?

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You're listening to the You're listening to the Amanda Davison podcast where we

Amanda Davison (03:42.09)
You're listening to the Amanda Davison podcast where we gather to tell the whole truth, live freely.

Amanda Davison (03:53.12)
You're listening to the Amanda Davison podcast where we gather to tell the whole truth, live free from spiritual pressure, and embrace who God really created us to be.

Amanda Davison (04:06.028)
You're listening to the Amanda Davison podcast where we

Amanda Davison (04:14.112)
You're listening to the Amanda Davison podcast, where we gather to tell the whole truth, live free from spiritual pressure, and fully.

You're listening to the Amanda Davison podcast where we gather to tell the whole truth, live free from spiritual pressure, and embrace who God actually created us to be.

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Amanda Davison (05:23.544)
So last

Amanda Davison (05:29.23)
So in the last episode, we talked about spiritual conditioning. But what I really want to dive into in this episode is the differentiating between obedience and control. Because if we don't get a clear picture on that, our faith will be confusing to us. Our obedience will be confusing to us. We will not be living in the full freedom that Christ came to die.

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Last week

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Last week we talked about spiritual conditioning and what that looks like, how to identify that in our own lives. This

Amanda Davison (06:16.374)
In the last episode, we talked about spiritual conditioning, how to identify that and what that looks like in our own lives. In this episode, I really want to focus on the difference between obedience and control so that our faith does not get confusing and we again are not putting anything onto our faith that is not supposed to be there. So breaking it down, how do we look at obedience? How do we look at control? Very generally speaking, and then we'll get into specifics.

Obedience flows from love. It is chosen. It's never forced. Obedience brings peace, even when it's hard, and it draws you closer to God. Control is always, always, always driven by fear. It feels forced, it feels pressured, it creates anxiety, confusion, and it disconnects you from yourself, from God.

It might connect you to people, but it disconnects you from yourself and God. And if we're all being honest, we've probably all felt what that feels like. We know the difference, but maybe it's been hard to put words onto it. Maybe you've felt this way in the ways that you say yes to things, even when you want to say no. Or you say no, but you're afraid to say no.

Amanda Davison (08:00.206)
Here's how it plays out. We're taught things like don't question authority. A good woman submits without question. Dying to yourself means ignoring your own feelings or your own experience. If it feels hard, it must be God refining you. Or if it feels hard, the only remedy is prayer. We talked a little bit about that last in the last episode. And again, some of these ideas do have truth in them.

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But when we're taught them without context, without balance, without the heart of Jesus, they turn into then control. Jesus does not go around repeatedly saying, obey, obey in a rigid command-heavy way. It's actually important to distinguish. Instead, he consistently frames obedience as something that flows out of love, out of relationship and trust, never control.

Не верше.

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And that's one distinction for you is that obedience flows from love, not from fear. John chapter 14, verse 15 says, if you love me, Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Notice he's not saying, if you're afraid of me, or if you want approval. No, it always starts with love, real love, genuine love, not.

Pressure. And then Jesus repeats this, like I love this. He repeats his ideas.

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And then Jesus repeats this. I love it. He always ties it to relationship in John 14, verse 21. He says, Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. Saying saying it again. And John

Amanda Davison (10:18.7)
And Jesus repeats this idea in John verse 1421. He says, Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. John fifteen, verse ten. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love. Obedience here equals obedience.

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Obedience here means staying connected, staying in relationship, staying close to the heart of the Father, not performing out of pressure.

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And Jesus always invites us. He never forces us. Matthew chapter 16, verse 24. He says, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Notice the key phrase in that. He says, Whoever wants to, whoever wants to. And I think that for some of us listening, I sense that you have been.

Faced with the reality, and you've been in situations or contexts, environments to where you did not have a choice. You felt pressure to do something, pressure to be something, pressure to not do something, pressure to not be something. And that is not how we see Jesus. There's always choice with Jesus, and that is the opposite of control. Also, Jesus's leadership.

It's described as light, not heavy. Remember this. We spoke about it a little last in the last episode. Matthew 11, verse 28, verse.

Amanda Davison (12:20.514)
Also, Jesus is leadership. He is worthy to be followed because it's described as light, not heavy. Matthew chapter 11, verse 20 through 30 highlights again, he says, like we talked a little bit about this in the last episode, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. If what's being called obedience feels crushing,

Or gives you anxiety or feels suffocating to you, that's not Jesus. Okay, that's that's not Jesus. Obedience is led by the Spirit, not an external pressure. Look at Romans chapter 8, verse 14. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. Being led is not.

Being controlled. Being led is not being forced. This implies that the Spirit of God, Jesus Himself, He guides through relationship, through this internal direction and knowing there's not an external pressure happening. There ought not to be an external pressure happening within our relationship with Jesus or any other.

You fall in the blank place of worship, or our communities, or our small groups, or our friendships. There there should not be that.

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Fear-based obedience is never from God. Second Timothy chapter one verse.

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Fear-based obedience is never from God. Second Timothy chapter 1, verse 7 says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear. I'm gonna read that again. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. If obedience is driven by fear in any way, it's a red flag.

Freedom is always the goal, not bondage. Freedom is the goal, not bondage. Again, we're looking, we're examining what in our lives, if anything, in our faith walk with the Lord has anything to do with external pressures that are not of Jesus, that are not biblical. Freedom is the goal. Obedience that leads to bondage. I'm gonna start that sentence over because I really want it to hit.

Obedience that leads to bondage contradicts its entire purpose. Obedience

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Obedience that leads to bondage contradicts its entire purpose. When we look at Jesus, we don't see him forcing people to do anything. We see him inviting, follow me, come to me. There's always a choice, there's always dignity. And yes, he called people higher, but he never overrode their voice to do that. Real obedience through relationships.

True love from love, from relationship, does not require you to disappear. Real obedience.

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Real obedience does not require you to disappear. It doesn't require you to shut down your thoughts, your discernment, or your voice. God is not asking for a version of you that is smaller. He's asking for you, for your whole heart, for your whole surrender. And he doesn't expect or want anything more. So where it gets twisted for us is when we don't just learn obedience, we learn fear.

Fear disguised as obedience.

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Fear of being wrong, being out of alignment, being labeled rebellious, disappointing people, disappointing God. So we stay quiet, we dim ourselves, we stay agreeable, we overcommit, we stay in line. Even when something inside of us says, this doesn't feel right, God gives you discernment for a reason. He doesn't ask you to turn your brain off.

He doesn't ask you to ignore what you're sensing. He doesn't ask you to silence anything. That's not obedience. That's disconnection. Obedience to God never requires you to betray what He's placed inside of you. He didn't come to create controlled followers. He came to restore us, to bring us back into alignment with the truth and into wholeness.

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Jesus didn't come to

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Jesus didn't come to create controlled followers. He came to restore us. He came to bring us back into alignment with the truth, into wholeness. So maybe for you, the question that you need to sit with today is: have I been living in obedience? Or have I been living under control? And if you're starting to realize it's been control, there's no shame in that whatsoever.

But there is an invitation, an invitation to relearn what obedience actually looks like through the lens of Jesus, relationship and love with Jesus, not pressure. That's exactly what we're gonna keep unpacking, along with so many other things. So if this resonates with you, hit that like and subscribe.

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So if this resonates with you, make s

Amanda Davison (19:14.072)
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