February 2 - Deuteronomy 10:12-13

February 2 - Deuteronomy 10:12-13

So now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you? Only to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being.

Micah 6:8 begins with these words as well, “What does the Lord require of you?” The answer in that passage is ‘to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’

Within these two verses there are five things that Moses calls on the Israelites to do.

To fear. To walk.  To love.  To serve.  To keep.

The sequence of these actions is not tossed out there at random.

Proverbs 1:7 says that the ‘fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.’  While this word in Deuteronomy does actually mean ‘terror,’ the implication is that when we come into that type of reverential awe before God, we will begin to understand what it means to walk in his ways.  It is so difficult to be submissive to the will of God – especially in our culture today.  Not many of us are submissive to anyone.  Fear of the Lord, believing that He is the ultimate authority in our lives, is absolutely necessary for us to progress through all of these steps.

It is hard to walk with the Lord when our eyes are off the path.  We think we are doing good things and hope that He will approve of the choices we make, but when we are making those choices without consideration for His authority, we swerve off the path – and everything else becomes corrupted.

We can’t love Him as He asks us to do.  In 1 Corinthians 13, we find out what perfect love is all about.  I know how difficult it is to live up to the ideals Paul sets forth and there is no possibility of achieving that type of love without beginning with the fear of the Lord.

Without love, we are unable to serve.  We might serve those things that we love – but if those are limited to the small world-view that we each have … it does nothing for God’s kingdom on earth.  We are to serve God with all of ourselves.  Our hearts and our souls (being – life) are to be brought before Him.  When He calls for sacrifice, we are to do so immediately and without question, no matter what it is that He asks us to release.  Serving God is more than anything we believe it might be – it is definitely more than spending a few hours in the church office, running a Bible study, taking up the offering on a Sunday morning or teaching a kids Sunday School class.  It is allowing Him to guide our lives and make decisions that might make no sense to us.  It is being available to do His will wherever He calls us to be.  It is sacrificial service.

Keeping God’s commands and decrees will be natural for us as we move along this path.  It should never be easy – we should always be battling our natural desire to forge out on our own.  But, the final phrase reminds us that God never calls us to do anything that will go against His good pleasure for us.  All of these things are required of us for our own well-being.

The Israelites could never understand that the things God asked them to do would benefit them in the end.  We seem to have the same perspective.  We work so hard to set out on our own.  But, God requires us to fear Him, to walk with Him, to love Him, to serve Him and to keep His commandments – not for Him, but for our own well-being.