We tell Jesus over and over again, “Lord, I love you.  I’m so thankful for your mercy and your grace.  You’ve been so good to me.  Your love is beyond my comprehension.  While I was a sinner You loved me and You gave Your life for me.”  Overwhelmed by that we say, “Lord, we love You.”  And He makes this one powerful statement, “If you love Me, keep My commandments”; amen?  That’s quite a statement.  And we think we show our love by things that we do that are generated from self, what we imagine God would want us to do, instead of what He’s commanded us to do; amen?  Because some of the commandments that He’s placed upon us, we don’t like those.  We want to find another way to show God we love Him, but there’s only one way.  He said, do these things and you’ll live and you’ll go in and possess these promises, but you can’t add to or diminish from.  He goes down into the sixth verse and He says, “Keep therefore, and do all these commandments for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations.”  They’ll hear and see My hand of blessing upon you, my deliverance for you.  They’ll see it in conjunction with your obedience, your keeping of “these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”

See, too many of us are impressed with the world’s wisdom.  If we lived the Word of God, they would be impressed with our wisdom, and it will bear itself out that in their midst our children will be ten times wiser than theirs; amen?  And we’re talking about because of the inner witness of the person of God that we’re able to move in that obedience, not just that they were educated in public school.  That’s knowledge.  We’re talking about wisdom.  We’re talking about knowing, how to take knowledge and get it applied properly.  We’re talking about wisdom which realizes that all that we have is from God, so if we’ll use it for God, He will then in turn bless us, praise God!

So, here are these admonitions that are taking place to the children of Israel, early on.  Go over a chapter if you would.  He continues to speak to them, we see the introduction of the ten commandments, and then we find in verse 29 where it said, “O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always.”  I want you to take notice here, a key thing that we’re going to talk about: that true Biblical obedience comes from the heart and not from the mind.  These are things that we want to grasp.  I was sharing with someone a while ago that it’s very important that as it pertains to Biblical obedience, Biblical submission, obedience as we made reference to in the authority of the church, the way God has established authority in the church.  And He uses some very powerful words, Hebrews 13 does, that for the natural mind will immediately rise up and be repulsed by these statements.  Like, “Obey them that have the rule over you.”  First of all, we don’t like to obey and we don’t like anybody to rule over us; amen?  God doesn’t even apologize; He doesn’t even explain it.  He didn’t take one more verse to try to justify the need to justify; amen?  It’s just fact, and that’s what He says.

I was sharing with somebody the other day who was dealing with certain areas that pertained to that.  And I shared with him, I said, “Well here’s the difference,” and we have to understand it that, “obedience is not submission.”  I can carry out the commandment and not be submissive.  You all remember the story of the little boy, right?  That was standing up in the high chair and dad told him to sit down and he didn’t obey.  So, father told him to sit down and he didn’t obey.  So, father sat him down; amen?  I never can comprehend that: “I just can’t do anything with that child.”  He’s 20 pounds, don’t tell me you can’t do anything with him.  Now I know that I’m getting older, slower, not as strong as I used to be, but I can whip your kid, and so can you.  So, we remember the story and as he was sat down, that’s power, that’s not just authority now, now it’s power.  In the spirit realm we have both power and authority.  And the little guy, then, was sitting there and within his heart these words rose up, “I’m sitting down on the outside but I’m standing up on the inside.”  How many of you have ever been there?