"I may not always do what God wants me to, but He knows that I love Him"    Countless Millions

"If you love me, you will obey what I command"    Jesus

My father in law Alvin tells a story of when he was a small child. His parents had given him a dime and he went into a cafe and ordered a hamburger. Alvin was hungry and he had his mouth set on a hamburger. He was looking forward to that hamburger. He was nearly drooling for that hamburger. So as the man fixed his order, he could hardly wait. But the man did not bring him a hamburger. Instead, he brought him a baloney sandwich and said, "Here's your hamburger". He apparently didn't think that a kid would know the difference.

But Alvin did know - and he was sorely disappointed.

So here's the lesson: Even a kid knows when someone is trying to feed him a bunch of baloney. We can call a baloney sandwich a hamburger if we want, but it's still baloney.

Why is it that so many of us go through life with statements like, "I may not always do what God wants me too, but He knows that I love Him", and actually believe it? I think that it's for the identical reasons that the man at the cafe tried to give a small child a baloney sandwich when he had ordered a hamburger: First, baloney is cheaper than hamburger, so it costs less to make. Second, a baloney sandwich is much easier to make, so it takes less time. Third, and perhaps most significant, the man thought he was smarter and could get away with it.

Doesn't that describe our attitude, when we decide not to obey? We think that God's way costs too much and is too time consuming, so we offer a cheap substitute... and we fool ourselves. We think that we have found a loophole to service - we might even think that God won't know the difference.

But we are wrong. God does know the difference.

Do we?

Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching... He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me."

John 14:23-24, NIV