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Several times in the upper room discourse, you might notice that Jesus said something like the imperative in John 14:15, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Same chapter, v. 21, then says, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me,” v. 23, “If a man love me, he will keep my words,” v. 24, “He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings,” 15:10, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love,” 17:6, “thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word,” 1 John 2:3, “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments,” and 1 John 3:22, “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” There are several more like these samples. God wants His Word “kept.” When believers stop believing, practicing, and practicing God’s Word, it falls by the wayside, so it is not kept, and people, families, nations, and the world suffer.
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The concept of heart is woven into English culture. This comes from the Bible, because it’s from there that people understand the existence of and importance of the heart. I’m not talking about the pulsating muscle in the middle of the chest, although they relate to one another in a certain fashion. The two words, “the heart,” are used together as such 115 times in the King James Version. The first one is in Exodus 9:7 when “the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.” This certainly wasn’t hardening of the arteries. However, you find that the usage of “the heart” is how we understand what it means. Psalm 19:8 says, “The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart.” “The heart” is man on the inside, which is mainly his mind. Psalm 119:11 says, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” People memorize scripture in the mind, but it is relates to more than the mind, because when they think about scripture, it can change them, affect their will.
No saved person in the New Testament refuses baptism by immersion. A person is saved and then he is baptized. It is an act of obedience. Jesus told John, Suffer it to be so to fulfill all righteousness. Going unbaptized is unrighteous as a practice, according to Jesus. Paul uses the terminology, baptized into Christ’s death. The preposition translated “into” means identification. Baptism identifies with Jesus Christ, first His death. Someone baptized goes under the water to picture death and burial. Paul also said someone is buried with Christ in baptism. The old person is pictured as gone. A saved person wants people to see that. He is a new person in Christ. Peter says that baptism saves someone from the world. By making a public profession of faith in Christ, someone says he’s not going the way of the world any more, but after Christ. The Apostle Paul also says that the saved person is baptized into the church, associating with the church through baptism as a new convert.
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